Grrl Power #275 – Wake up call
The rather spirited debate about Vehemence and the direction of the fight continued in the comments for the last page, I’m sure this one will only add to it. Again I want to reiterate that the whole fight isn’t rebooting at this point despite what it looks like. I mean… you know, pretend it is so you get that “ooh how ever will they survive?” vibe and all that.
I think the tail end of the battle is bumping up against the weakness of the webcomic format, which is that a bi-weekly posting schedule makes it feel like a bit of a slog. It’s only been three pages since Vehemence regenerated his arm. In webcomic time that’s a week and a half, in comic book time, that’s maybe 30 seconds to turn each page.
After I drew this page it occurred to me that there’s probably no way Harem didn’t see the wave coming. One of her big strengths is being able to view a battlefield from multiple angles simultaneously. Right now she’s at a slightly reduced capacity though. The strawberry blonde “default” one had her wrist broken by Vekter’s rock chucking antics, so she’s currently in un-teleported limbo. It will definitely suck for her when she re-teleports that one cause for her it will be the instant after her wrist was broken. Another of her is probably rummaging around the Archon Armory looking for something that might help with Vehemence.
It’s easy to forget that information we as readers take for granted isn’t omnisciently shared among everyone in the comic. Even I forgot for a while that Sydney and Harem don’t know about Maxima’s power pool – remember it’s classified info and it’s way above their pay grade. Sydney barely even has a pay grade at this point.
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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Is this ever going to end? This is way past dull already.
The woes of webcomic time. Future generations will be able to just breeze through the fight, while we oldtimers have to wait for week after agonizing week.
Actually, even in webcomic time, this is taking … a lot of time.
Vehemence’s first start of fighting happened way back in September. It’s almost January now. That’s 27 pages just devoted to the Vehemence fight – so far. Standard comic book length is 24 pages (including advertisements which take up around 7-8 of those pages – go check your comic books – the standard ones, not the trade paper back big ones). So that means so far Vehemence’s fight is… roughly two comic books long, of just fighting and power-ups.
The entire fight now has gone on since MARCH. Again, we are halfway through December – it’s almost January, and judging from how the fight is going, this will probably be lasting until at least January if not longer based on comments of the author. Counting March, that’s 10 months, and bordering on 11 months. That’s 75 pages so far (the entire comic since the beginning being 275 pages, and the entire comic flashback portion being 265 pages (minus pinup pages and guest fan comics, which probably actually wind up being 260 pages actually). So… the entire fight, so far, has gone on for about 5 comic books of length, since Brick first crashed the party.
I hate math(ematics) but that means… 34.66 percent of the comic has been this fight, and almost 10 percent (technically 9.63 percent) has been Vehemence.
You know, if you look at anime or manga, than this isn’t actually that long for an arch-villian fight. Probably would translate to about two weeks waiting in anime and four weeks for manga. Most long fights in the archvillain section take 2 episodes, and they can often be almost the same as this, just fighting and power-ups or worse, add flashbacks. To be honest if you fond this dull than just drop this comic until June or something, then restart the whole thing, you’ll find thos entire fight to actually be very short.
What gives you the right to tell me to drop a comic? That is a truly asinine thing to say to me. You are satisfied with how things are going; I am not. I am not telling you that you should start hating it; do me the courtesy of not trying to tell me that I must enjoy things in the way you feel I should.
It’s an ad hominem attack, whisakedjak. It’s a whole ‘Love it or leave it’ fanboyism mentality, ignoring that you like the comic, just not a particular character or current direction the comic is leading towards which lessens the enjoyment of reading it.
Not really much different from people who call me a militant feminist who must only like femdom and would have no problem if the genders were swapped because apparently 1) I’m a fan of comics who is female and 2) I’m being critical about a particular villain, or a particular part of the comic, even when I’m just pointing out pure facts about the length that it’s taken.
Even the first part of his statement is ad hominem. He basically say ‘this fight isnt going on a really long time, because there are other fights in anime (a medium where fights can go on for years between moves) that go on even longer. And therefore you should go away.’ Not to mention it’s not a really good sign for a comic if you have to say ‘it’s not as bad as poorly written anime fights.’ Honestly, that’s sort of like if someone is shot in the leg for no reason, and someone else says ‘hey, at least you werent shot in the head.’ It doesnt really justify you having been shot in the leg though.
In this case, I’m not really sure if ‘me’ is responding to MCSE, or you, or me. but any way, it’s pretty much the same as someone saying ‘you’re wrong and you’re stupid – go away’ I just pointed out,in response to Dirka saying that webcomic time is drawn out (very true, if you read stuff like Goblins: Life through their eyes – which is an my favorite webcomic that has very drawn out plotlines – I mean like 3+ year long between resolving sub-plots and cliffhangers). But comparing it to a regular comic book, which I thought was the point of his statement, the length of the fight, both of the entire fight, and of the Vehemence-only portion of the fight, is rather long – both on its own and as a portion of the entire length of the story so far.
Yeah- I actually restrained myself from responding to that thread- partly because you did it eloquently yourself and partly because I couldn’t think of a way to tell someone who I usually respect that he was being a chauvinist douchebag in a manner that wouldn’t sound overly offensive.
As I get more tired and I see more people who apparently believe they can either (1) read my mind or (2) command my obedience to their whims, I find that my genial attitude is slipping.
The same amount of right you have to whinge about a flashback establishing detail for a setting being too detailed.
Don’t get in a fluff about being patronized for the view you express or the way you’ve expressed it, because if you’re going to express your opinion, it is “fair game” for others.
Sure. I won’t get in a huff about your being a prick and trying to tell me how to be like a boss!
See if that works for you, ‘k boss?
Go on, boss- tell me how I should react to your posts. Seeing as you obviously know everything and have absolute knowledge about how I should feel about this. I’m listening. Boss.
The comment isn’t saying drop the comic [period], though I can definitely see how it comes across that way. It’s saying take a break until June and read it like an archive binge, and the pacing might feel a lot more “right”.
The phrasing was awkward and came across badly, but the idea isn’t on its face a bad one. Dave has said on more than one occasion he’s writing this so that the pacing works when you come back to read the whole thing in one sitting.
All that said, no, nobody has any right to order you to do any of these things, no matter how good of an idea they may seem to be, and you have every right to be offended by any attempt to do so.
Flashbacks would actually break up the tedium of a long-drawn-out fight btw, and sometimes can provide both backstory and solutions without the reliance of a deus ex machina, because the reasoning for how to win the fight can be found in the flashback.
Standard US comic book length is 32 pages (since the 60s) with 8-10 pages of advertizements. A 27 page fight would be 1 comic plus a few pages of the next. Also, the fight could start halfway through one book and finish toward the end of the next. Pacing-wise, this actually is only uncommon.
But I agree, this is a long fight. What doesn’t help is it follows on all the previous fights.
It might be because I tend to have a lot of older comics, or Gen 13 comics, most of which were between 22 and 32 pages – all of which tended to have about 8 pages of ads, and an additional few pages of ‘letters to the editor’ and a few double page ‘splash’ pages. I had taken out about 10 different comics from my collection and only one was 27 pages ore more (30 pages – that one had a bunch of pages in the back for letters to the editor and some one page bios of a couple of characters, and a second comic that was 4 pages long). The shortest one was 22 pages, and 5 of them were 24 pages. But yeah, even if an average comic since 1960 is 32 pages, with 8-10 pages of ads (and I’m still assuming a couple of those pages are double page ‘splash’ pages, and there’s at least one letters to the editor page (and maybe a ‘short’ comic in the back of 2-4 pages), I think my estimate is still pretty close to accurate.
In any case, like you said (and I said before) … it’s a long fight (even in webcomic time), especially when you take into account that the pacing has become over 1/3rd of the comic’s entire history is just the fight, and 1/10th of the comic’s entire 4-ish year history is just Vehemence doing the fighting and taunting and bragging and threatening (and we’re still not apparently at the end of it). Thanks for the correction though. I should buy some more recent comics other than New 52 :)
you guys are forgetting a major detail. WE ARE STILL ONLY ON DAY 1. I mean its been a 4 year long day. from my perspective it seems kinda stupid to whine about how long the fight seems to be taking
I just reread the entire archive in a few (distracted) hours, counting much of the commentary. About as long as it’d take to read a pair of graphic novels and enjoy the artwork. 275 pages is about 3-4 graphic novels, give or take. The whole thing moves fast if you’re not waiting for updates.
I like Vehemence. He makes a good arch-villain; they should force the heroes to think to defeat him, not just play to their obvious strengths. Sydney will be key to his defeat; she’s the only one not reacting to him.
So ask for your money back.
The first time I the seventh frame I seriously thought it said “or the ood invasion”
If the Ood invade, start looking around for the TARDIS to appear…
Actually, if you think about it, the Ood might actually be able to put a stop to him… They have that telepathy nonsense going for them and telepathy isn’t violent… hmmm… too bad ARC doesn’t have any known telepaths… And that gets me thinking… Sydney’s other two orbs… or the skill point she put into her telepresence orb…
Touché
I know we’re all hoping for a good way to end the fight, but are you seriously suggesting that Sydney being in someone else’s head is less than a war crime? And, in this case, an UNMEDICATED Sydney?
I’m imagining V as an Ood. Or a Dalek.
I forgot the name of the alien race, but they’re bred, born & raised in a very war-like society. The Doctor shamed one into becoming a *medic* of all things, just to make helpful instead of destructive. Appearance-wise, I’ve heard them described as looking something like Mr. Potato Heads.
Between V’s similarities of being bald & war-like with these guys…
That was Strax, of the Sontarans.
He’s way too big and too smart to be a Sontaran. Plus he could actually tell males and females apart. ;p
Though shaming V into becoming a maid… Hmm…
In that case, V could be made to clean up the mess that was made of the restaurant & overpass construction…
Actually originally it read “or the ood an alien invasion” but was fixed.
You know what Sydney should be able to do? Body-check Vehemence off of Maxima and give her a chance to recover. Shield orb, fly orb, slam into V at ~400 miles an hour. Should startle him a little, at least.
We have yet to determine if the flight + shield combo has inertial dampers to brace against sudden impact. She could just as easily end up slamming into the inside wall of the shield at 400 mph trying that move. Similar ideas were suggested when Syd and Max initially flew out to the firing range. The consensus was that she should start testing the move at slow speed and work her way up to see if the ‘cannonball’ maneuver was doable.
Ignoring the fact that it would just make V even stronger, I think, based on what was seen earlier, that the whole 400 mph thing involves Sydney building up speed over time, rather than instant 400 mph. Maxima said she had been gradually building up speed to test how fast Sydney can fly). Also, the fact that Sydney didn’t even seem to notice either means her ADHD is quite a bit more severe than anyone else’s on the planet (given Sydney is still a possibility) or the shield does provide for inertial dampening. If it doesnt let air or teleportation or energy or kinetic force breach it, it might just not allow outside-based inertia through either.
Yes, more violence is definitely the answer…
Vekter is going to wake up MAD! In pain and mad. He may not be in overall charge but unless he and Opal just skedaddle, I’m looking forward to him leading a round two on Vehemance (hopefully).
Yeah, seriously doubt that’s gonna work out any better for Chia-pet the second time (after Fedorka has had the chance to buff up)
ahh but max might keep V occupied lone enough for Opal to Portal him into the middle of the pacific ocean.
*LONG enough*
Maybe “lone enough” would be appropriate here…What if Opal can’t ‘port one person only when there’s another so close? She would wind up ‘porting V AND Max, with his neck-crunching grip still in place.
O.o
If he wole everyone up what about death toll? Who would then counter the mind control and would be able to provide a spot that vehemence can’t risk attacking lest he lose his precious vehemic energy build-up.
Depends on a few things, including:
1) if everyone who woke up is or is not under Vehemence’s control like mind control (the reasoning I think about why he can’t just do that to Maxima or Sydney or Harem or Anvil being they were conscious, so could easily resist, while someone unconscious can’t resist)
2) if there is a way to get Vehemence to somehow attack Death Toll, or if there’s some way to get Death Toll to block an attack from Vehemence without the person moving him setting off Death Toll’s nemesis power.
The Nemesis power allows him to counter superpowers thrown at him, I’m not sure if passively absorbing vehemehent energy triggers it, or if it’s enough to counter a vehemehence-powered right cross. I presume V’s burning off more energy with his attacks than they give back to him, otherwise he could power himself up with bagwork and skip the risk of fighting a team of superheroes.
From what I’ve seen, he doesnt actually burn off any power, despite saying every other page that he has power to burn.
I just hope the thing with Death Toll because there are almost no other deus ex machina ways that I can see to beat the guy without resulting in him having to die, or an incredibly unsatisfying ending where he just leaves (despite saying he needs to kill Maxima first) – which seems to take a concept like ‘grrl power’ and say ‘nah, who needs grrl power.’
This reply is to all the Zippydippywiggle crap and people going “ugh dull/op/blah” whinging. Not that posting that a couple dozen times (in just a few of the threads on the first page, I didn’t read any past the point where the OP of the term explained what it meant) isn’t trollish enough.
He already shows knowledge of magic (and more) by recognizing the spell Dabbler used on him as well as materials used in the construction of her weapon, and various other facets that establish him, even if only (from our point of view) nominally, as one with potential/understanding, even if lacking in capability because “boring old superhuman with one or two powers”.
It’s also kind of annoying that people are bitching about the character not having as much “evidence/proof” towards abilities/knowledge and that he’s “making shit up on the fly” when there aren’t a couple dozen/hundred issues establishing him as there are for say, Superman, or Spiderman, even when you ignore the illogicalities created by people changing him when they take over writing. Oh noes, you didn’t get a massive infodump that breaks the fourth wall the page he showed up (which would be a spoiler that would kill my interest in pretty much anything, and I have a high tolerance for stupid). Get over it.
Everything he’s done so far has made sense to me in this universe, and my knowledge of it is as limited to anybody elses that doesn’t read every single comment looking for Dave’s replies. I’ve seen a fair few of them, but I haven’t read everything so I’m sure I’ve missed things, and hell, he even states that in the blog entry for this page, that we are not omniscient and do not everything about every character (much less new ones, relatively), but sadly it seems people remain ignorant, whether willfully so or not, of that fact, and base their complaints on the character/comic off what is an erroneous worldview.
Perhaps you’ve misinterpreted what people are unhappy about- either that, or you’ve reinterpreted it in order to place your own words in their mouth.
I will grant you that I was less than thrilled with Pander’s zdw posts- I understand why she did them, but they weaken her position quite a bit, and I think she’s had quite a few excellent points to raise.
That said, what has bothered me has been that Vehemence has been manifesting new powers on the fly- by the author’s own admission- and really does seem to be showing no negative effects whatsoever. You are, of course, correct that I can’t know that he hasn’t- I can only make my judgement based on what DaveB has posted and what I have observed. When those two things are in conflict and there is no other evidence to the contrary, I tend to go with what I observe. I realize that may be silly, but the fact is that people often say things that they fail to prove or back up.
The reason Vehemence’s ability to simply shrug everything off and keep on going is bothering me is because this is a bad place- yes, my opinion; it’s the only one I have legitimate access to- to introduce an arch-nemesis. It undermines the character development of the entire team and especially Maxima.
Now, it may be that Maxima needs to be taken down a peg or two; certainly there were lots of people who felt that Maxima was too powerful and that she seemed overconfident. The problem is that this is ArcSWAT’s first major engagement. No, I don’t count Maxima in the bank and no, I don’t count Maxima’s experiences prior to the beginning of the comic. This is the first major engagement within the context of this comic- and they are being curbstomped with laughable (or, possibly, sobworthy) ease.
I freely admit that I don’t like the character or concept of Vehemence, but, honestly, it would be just as bad if they were getting flattened by an overwhelming horde of mooks, a truly brilliant (yet nonsuper) criminal mastermind, or the blinking legal system. It weakens the team when they need to be built up. It’s bad storytelling (again, my opinion- see how that works?)
Now, DaveB has said that he has some way to pull this out of the mess that it’s become. I truly hope that is the case. In the meantime, though, just as everyone has the right to express how much they want to have Vehemence’s love child, I have a right to say why his introduction disgusts me.
In many regards, I agree with you. Mr. X-Box Symbols does seem to be waaaaaaay too OP. Especially for his introduction. The fact that he can do all of this and even understands as much of his ability as he does suggests that he’s been using (or most likely in his case abusing) his power for a long time. The fact that he is not already on ArcLight’s radar because of this is bothersome to me.
However, based off of what I’ve seen of this comic, I believe that, in many ways, Dave’s goal is to both make a Superhero comic and poke fun at Superhero comics at the same time. I believe that this whole fight will be a way to ultimately make fun of Superhero comics by having a seemingly absolutely unstoppable villain suddenly have his one weakness discovered at the very last second just before he takes out Maxima; most likely by Sydney.
But, as you stated, this is just my personal opinion, so take it as you will and with a grain of salt.
I think you’re probably right and, if I didn’t absolutely loathe V and everything about him, I might even be a bit more sanguine about it. Of course, that still doesn’t change the fact that I think he’s too OP for this point in the story.
I went and did a comments archive-dive; I was feeling this way before Maxima blew off his arm, back in Issue 264, so it may just be that my tolerance-level has been completely depleted.
The whole point in giving Maxima a bit of character development is that she needs to get some stuffing beat out of her – it’ll take some arrogance with it. The same argument applies to the rest of the team as well.
The demands a villain that’s more powerful than the whole team combined. Which isn’t a problem in the long run, since he’s not always this powerful. That allows for easier confrontations in the future, although they still have to be careful about him, which is a perfect balance.
Frankly, it’s quite brilliant.
Seriously? You have a problem with Maxima making an open threat to potential lawbreakers in an attempt to keep them from using their powers to cause chaos and crime, but you don’t have a problem with Vehemence saying “In case there’s any doubt, I’m the level 10, the dragon, ultraviolet, omega…” THATS fine? Not arrogant at all and needing a severe smackdown?
Just curious…
When/if you watched Robocop, and Robocop looked at the television and said with a menacing voice “Stay out of trouble”, did you think that was a good reason to cheer for the evil VP?
“Dead or alive, you’re coming with me” – that’s a good reason why you should be on Team Clarence Boddiker? Because Robocop was just asking for it for being factual about how ‘if you mess with me, I’m taking you down’ means Robocop needed to be beaten?
I don’t see how this would require being ‘careful’ about him in the future – it requires the first attack in the future to be a killing attack which cannot be regenerated. Full out. All future fights with Vehemence would need to last 5 seconds.
You’re reading in things that I’ve never said. Vehemence will get his beatdown, either this time or in the future. But that’s not very important, actually. Villains are tools to develop characters with, characters of themselves secondary. We’re not following Vehemence’s story.
As for future meetings, if you can’t see that V let the whole 50 odd supers battle royale almost finish before he even started mucking with Arc, that’s not my problem. But I would say that it was much, much longer than 5 seconds.
Sorry if I read stuff into what you said, so I’ll make it the form of a question instead.
Do you think Maxima making an open threat to potential lawbreakers, which she then admits is to make potential lawbreakers think ‘nah, it’s not worth the risk’ is more arrogant and IMMEDIATE smackdown-worthy than ‘I’m the dragon! I’m the ultraviolet! (a terrible movie btw) I’m the omega! I’m the best! You’re going to die right now and there’s nothing anyone can do about it and now watch as I swat away your friends without even needing to look at them and create violence zombies of your friends and enemies with a flex of my mighty buttocks! along with the multiple evil maniacal laughs he’s done now?
Second question – in an action movie (like Robocop/Batman/etc), when the hero acts tough, do you start routing for the baby-eating villain and think ‘well…. that hero needs to be smacked down for acting all tough! Better give Clarence Bodikker/the Joker the ability and powers of ‘whatever he wants’ in order to put that hero in their place?
Now they are questions I’m asking. I also meant by the 5 second thing that, as a recurring villain, Vehemence has a pretty dull future, because unless Maxima is utterly vapid, an amnesiac, and has no tactical sense whatsoever as a soldier, would not the VERY first thing to do if there’s ever a report of Vehemence in any area of the world be to fly there asap, grab him and fly him up into orbit before he can siphon off enough violence to do a ‘don’t move self magic’ then blow his head off, then explode the rest of his body within the scope of 5 seconds? That’s a third question.
Try vehemence has been making up powers on the fly and seems too OP, but honestly I can’t bring myself to dislike it.
I still fully support your whole open opinion thing, and way to go with that, but he himself said that he would have been easily killed without the power-up from the book armies fight, he’s intelligent about as humble as you can get when you have more power than Hiroshima and his powers are realistic. All these new powers that he’s using are costing him huge supplies of energy, he just has that much to spare, and honestly he’s about to be beaten, since given the whole situation I’d say he’s right at the point of defeat.
all in all vehemence is a rather normal character with balanced powers, he just had the advantage that his power’s weren’t understood until it was too late, and he made a good plan ahead of time.
Just out of curiosity, where in the comic has it shown that “all these new powers that he’s using are costing him huge supplies of energy” – given that he is maintaining all of these effects quite easily? Also could you please explain how the power to do anything is balanced, given the storyline was written in such a way that it would have been impossible, without having divination of the future powers, to be able to tell what he was going to do? Thanks.
i see two problems with “Vehemence show”
– drag on the battle trowing a “new power” every page, and many disliked Dabbler becouse she have many trick (magic, tecnology, lust aura, ecc) as clearly stated in her bio.
– He can’t be maimed or killed becouse “recurring villaine” but every page it’s just more impossible for Vehemence to survive this battle, or the next time he do something, whitout killing Maxima. but he can’t do that in a flashback.
Someone holding a different opinion to you doesn’t automatically make it “whining”. Pander’s zippy-whatsit was definitely over the top but you’ll note that it’s already stopped and there’s a comment about regretting it. Enough said.
I have problems with V. I actually really liked the character right up until the “disarming” and I think that would have been a fantastic place to wrap it up, but since then he’s gotten (in my opinion) more over the top in every page.
It’s pretty much said outright that he’s never had this much power at his disposal before, and I believe he actually said that he’s never done the growing trick before at all (hence the ka-pants incident) and it’s almost certain that he’s never regenerated anything as significant as an entire arm before.
Regenerating an arm has to be expensive in terms of power, and yet in his own words that “made him stronger”. He could be lying, but the metal arm and the lightning happened immediately after so it seems that it actually didn’t cost him anything. Proceed to step “curb stomp Maxima”.
So now Max has thrown her best shot (short of actually straight up taking his head off) and is reduced to desperate defense with full armour. Fine. V isn’t strong enough to actually kill her in full armour mode at this point which is nice, but in the meantime he’s totally capable of diverting his attention enough to create some weird-ass wall of force that the kinetic absorber can’t absorb. I can even wear that, although I sort of shake my head at it.
Then he’s generating a weird and completely unexplained AOE effect that a) heals a number of people knocked cold by blunt force trauma enough to bring them back to full wakefulness, b) flushes sedative from the system of dozens of other people and c) unlocks a bunch of high-tech handcuffs. All at once, over a wide area. Even for someone who’s heavily practiced that’s an extraordinarily complex “spell” in my book, and V can’t be that practiced because he’s never had this level of power before, so it’s reasonable to assume that he’s brute-forcing it. However, it once again doesn’t seem to cost him anything. He’s still casually holding down one of the strongest beings on the planet, maintaining a lightning attack at the same time and happily monologue-ing along like any good arch-villain.
At this point I’m severely concerned that the solution is going to be a gimmick (Death Toll or the like) which would mean that Arc don’t actually even beat the guy enough to make him go away and that the fight still turned out like a complete curb-stomp, destroying the entire credibility of the team and calling their very existence into question. Especially if Opal evacuates most of the bad guys and all they have to show for the evening is a massive collection of bruises, a destroyed restaurant and a couple of token mooks in handcuffs.
Even if Max manages to pull out the win “fairly” at this point V still comes with the problem that he himself has raised in the comic. He’s supposed to be a recurring bad guy, but if he doesn’t kill Max then there’s literally no explanation for her not taking his head off next time he pops up without this much power in his pocket. If the fight had wrapped up earlier then we could have had awesome games with Arc-light looking for V in every shadow at every violent incident and he doesn’t have to cop an instant-kill shot when he gets spotted, but now a V sighting is almost guaranteed to have Max dropping anything to go take his head off.
For mine he just poses way too many problems to the story, and he’s showing too many enormously powerful tricks without any real limitations. Now, I’m willing to wait on it because it’s perfectly possible that DaveB’s actually a genius (everything up to this point has been brilliant after all) and that all my problems come down to the two-a-week pacing issue but that doesn’t mean I’m not really concerned about how this all turns out.
Well, the first part of your problem has been explained – the guy has magical powers, which sort of do whatever he wants as long as he has the juice to power them up. Since he has plenty of violence amassed he essentially can do whatever he can imagine, to a limit.
As per “how can someone with that power be a recurring villain” – there are many possible situations for this. For example he may simply leave before he expends most of his accrued energy, e.g. because the team has figured out a way to non-violently take him down, or because they arrange a distraction somewhere else (like taking his sickly grandma hostage), and will then only appear in a charged-up state, where direct attacks will be pointless and counterproductive, causing the team to work around him.
Or maybe some of his transformations, like his size most of his invulnerability will be permanent – staying even when he runs out of power, thus again meaning that a direct attack will only charge, rather than harm him.
Or maybe they will take him down now, but the next time he appears he will charge up some other way to his current glow-orange power levels, before engaging the team.
THere are many options to recur such villain.
Ok, now that things are back down to a more reasonable level of discussion, I feel like joining in again. I’d like to address a couple of issues you brought up.
1. The AOE-effect.
The way I see it, it’s simply an extension of his other abilities, namely regeneration and electrokinesis. Instead of focusing on himself, he sends out a wave that affects anyone in its path. Fixing blunt force trauma and helping metabolize sedatives is what I’d expect that effect to be able to do. As for the cuffs: he sent out an EM-Pulse, knocking them out. Of course, if we see the team using communications gear, bullshit might have to be called on that.
2. Energy
I bet that holding down Max doesn’t dip into is pool at this point, since it’s probably just his own strength after the upgrade. Way I see it the really expensive stuff was his growth-spurt, regenerating, and now electrocuting Max. Although he can’t be using that much juice, since the ground is not yet a smoking, charred mess. So yeah, he does have some energy drain, but maybe not as much as one might think as first. Really depends on the size of his current reserve. But I must admit, I kind of expect him to run into problems eventually. He’s been getting more careless in the course of the fight, pulling out ability after ability, and he’s also starting to make errors of judgement.
3. Recurring Villainy
That’s the big one I’ve been pondering for quite a while. I haven’t been able to come up with anything good yet. A political solution might be possible, where Max’ superiors are incentivized to keep V alive. Question is: what would keep Max from popping out of the office for five minutes to finish the job on the sly? Enemy-mine situations might also work, but are sooo cliché. The most sensible thing would be a solid counter to V’s abilities, so that stopping him does no longer equate to killing him. That’s what I think will happen, and I’m still trusting that, despite all our speculation, Dave will roll out a clever and simple solution that has been overlooked or dismissed.
Not getting into Vehemence but…
DaveB said the AOE effect was not just an extension of electrokinesis. The unlocking thing wasnt an EM pulse – it was another power – an ‘open everything in the area’ wizard power.
Pretty sure everyone waking up was a separate power as well – a ‘revive the unconscious’ power coupled with a ‘induce violence’ power, or an ‘induce violence/mind control to force them to fight’ power.
I’d say more just don’t care to anymore.
Wow, if that’s the case, magic is potentially very broken in this setting, as it basically works based on “do what I mean.” So either whatever makes magic work has ridiculous interpretive capabilities, or magic users are able to manipulate reality on a fundamental level with the simplest thought.
Either way, magic is wasted on the likes of Dabbler and V. Any competent magician should be able to pull a HJPEV and do staggering things to reality.
DaveB actually stated it outright,that it’s a ‘open all objects’ area of effect wizard effect – I believe last update in response to someone in the same thread where I said I thought it was just telekinesis. Yeah, it is making the use of magic feel pretty broken (to me at least) but I’m used to magic being used in the context of having some sort of penalty for being to blatant, or requiring actual study and practice before doing it, or having an actual, discernable cost. There’s no ‘paradox risk,’ no requirement which can be removed by an opponent (removing Dr Fate’s helmet, preventing Zatanna from speaking, taking away Anna Fortune’s spell bullet-firing guns). It’s more like fighting a Dr. Strange or Spectre, which isnt really ever going to be a fight – it’s always going to be a curbstomp against the opponent of that person.
I’d likely feel the same way about Dabbler if it wasnt for the fact that, at least so far, her abilities have not been unbeatable – she just has a lot of different powers, but none of them are particuarly making her ‘the most powerful.’ Dabbler’s abilities havent been as blatantly showboated (yet?).
With Dabbler, I guess I don’t have the same intense dislike because, so far, it’s more of a ‘jack (or jill in this case) of many trades, master of none’ thing, and most of what she’s actually done have been from scientific gadgets or the sword (which was already shown previously that she had gained artifacts when she did fight that space-god-hellbeast-thing and took a bunch of his loot). So at least it doesnt feel as deus-ex-machina-y.
If she were pulling new magical powers out of nowhere every turn from pushing her lust aura to make everyone horny, I’d dislike her intensely as a character (Right now she’s just my least favorite, but I don’t actually have a distaste for her since she’s humorous and most of her featured abilities have seemed to come from science actually, rather than the same repeated gimmick).
So far the only powers I’ve seen her do is:
1) the lust aura (which seems to be resisted even by non-supers, as when she did it both at the interview and press conference, she wasnt immediately mobbed by potential lovers, just caused some guys to need to cross their legs and guys and girls think pure thoughts – and honestly, it doesnt always take much for guys to get that effect from ANY attractive woman, amirite?)
2) her ‘quick shield’ thing that she used when Maxima punched at her
3) a short-range teleportation ‘blink’ effect
4) the glamour effect (which seems to be a natural part of her species rather than powered by lust; and
5) a sleep spell (which I’m guessing might be resistable as well)
I mean yeah it’s a bit much, but at least it’s not utterly unbeatable. First there’s the limiting fact that, since this is not an ‘adult’ comic, DaveB has already said he wouldnt be doing some sort of ‘Vehemence Level orgy.’ Second, Sydney managed to rather quickly bean her with one of the orbs. And third, her lust aura seems to be quickly dispelled by a gibbs smack to the back of her head. :)
PS – I agree with you, in this particular setting, but what does HJPEV mean?
Harry James Potter Evans Verres, from one of the most hyped fanfics on the net, HPMOR. It’s a bit of a love-or-hate thing, but personally I’d recommend going in without many expectations and deciding after ten or so chapters. Some annoying things, but also some very clever and very cool moments.
The biggest danger I’m seeing here is simple. The way he’s worded talking about Vehemence in the comment box it sounds like Dave has used him as a Troll type for games that he’s run. IE “Oh no, Vehemence is in town!” and all the supers hide in their little holes like wimps and little babies until he leaves or until they’re forced to confront him.
If that’s true …
I’ll let you make your own call.
That would actually be interesting, IMHO.
It is generally assumed that heroes are (at least as a team) the biggest and most powerful force around, so alternative situation, where they have to work around someone who is more powerful would be something worth exploring.
However, I do not think that this is the direction this comic is going.
Regarding “I bet that holding down Max doesn’t dip into is pool at this point, since it’s probably just his own strength after the upgrade”
I can’t buy that. He got stronger and faster in between the start of his showdown with Max and where we’re currently at just by absorbing more energy. If absorbing energy makes him stronger, spending it should make him weaker.
So, if I’m reading you correctly, you’re agreeing with me in that his strength does not actively drain his pool, and you’re disagreeing with me in that you figure his pool should be lower by now, and therefore he shouldn’t be strong enough to hold Max without spending further energy?
If that is the case, it all depends on the current size of his pool, and how big a drain all these abilities are. In his commentary Dave basically said “It’s enough, mkay?”, which is in line with V continually spouting “Yarr! I have so much energy!”, which can stretch suspension of disbelief the more stunts he pulls. YMMV on this one, for me it’s still all good, as long as the resolution is clever.
Otherwise I’ll be the first to break out the cardboard pitchfork :D
No – I’m pretty sure that Scuffles means (correct me if I’m wrong btw, Scuffles) that his strength SHOULD be actively drained (since his increased strength enough to hold Maxima down is yet another use of his vehemic energy absorption), but doesnt seem to be getting drained as does nothing else he does seem to drain him, even though ALL of that should be draining him. IE, since violence is strengthening his vehemic energy pool, which can then be used for his strength (above base strength), invulnerability (above base invulnerability), speed (above base speed), growth, regeneration and other magic do anything powers, using ANY of that actively should likewise drain him.
I think she was saying that her suspension of disbelief can withstand the idea that strength is not lessening because the amount of violence happening is replenishing him at the same rate that holding Maxima down is losing strength… If he wasnt also doing a TON of other stuff every turn, any of which should be expending power and therefore lowering his strength.
Look at it this way.
Strength 380 (Boosted 512). To keep it at 512 or increase it further he would have to spend Vehemic Energy. So there’s a certain level of Strength that he CAN maintain by now. But, going beyond that level (presumably needed to keep Maxima where she is) would require more than his ‘base’ level of Strength. Ergo, Vehemic Energy being drained by his Strength.
He’s Maintaining the Lightning Attack (Costing Vehemic Energy).
He just blew a chunk to Force everyone down Awake (one shot energy cost).
He apparently also just forced into them a chunk of Vehemic Energy (one shot cost).
He’s Regenerated recently(which cost him Vehemic Energy, so a one shot cost).
The only Vehemic Energy incoming now (prior to the nodoze pill) was Anvil’s single attack and Maxima trying to survive.
The Pool of Energy has leakage, otherwise he wouldn’t have needed to charge up before the fight. So, logically it should be draining from the continual usage of energy and the natural state of decay.
Blegh. Strength. Must revise! Worded poorly.
It’s entirely possible that his size, as well as so much ‘soaked’ vehemic energy has pushed certain physical traits to a Minimum Level. Until his body flushes all the V Juice out, the will not drop below That Level.
IE the Strength 380 I listed as an example.
Going ABOVE that however, the 512 for example, would Cost him Vehemic Energy.
In short, enough ‘soaked’ energy could create more ‘passive’ abilities, which would in a realistic amount of time fade away. Of course any energy that is ‘soaked’ in would not be available to him. Sort of like a “tax” if you will.
Wait wait wait. Did everyone who was knocked out just… get some bulk added to them? I don’t remember Heavenly Sword having that much muscle earlier.
I’m pretty sure it’s more angle than anything else; Heavenly Sword was pretty buff to begin with (which makes sense for a super-powered martial artist in the GP universe).
Actually, he just made a glaring mistake from what I saw, and has a glaring weakness.
He already stated it “if you found me when I wasn’t juiced up you’d flatten me.” He can’t hold vehemic energy forever. Either that or this next shot’s gonna put him back at base power and he can be harmed then. speaking of, what he did just then, from what I saw, was simply expel a wave of vehemic energy to fuel everyone who was out cold, which is why they went straight back to being violent. He just burned energy to get what he wanted.
The simple fact is, there is a diminishing return, he just has to meet someone (like max) who can make him spend enough energy that the violent act he commits to doesn’t give him as much energy as he burned. It’s not about you trying ot out violent him, but him out violenting himself.
Also, it’s stupid forcing the hand of a guy who’s admitted three times tht he’s not going for anything more dastardly than a good beat-em-up.
A “good beat em up” on duly appointed law enforcement by bringing three dozen known criminals, anarchists, terrorists, and what not to a civilian dwelling all of which have demonstrated intent and actual attempts at lethal force? Sorry, but no, that is no excuse for ignoring legal orders to STAND DOWN, SURRENDER, AND STOP RESISTING ARREST! In fact, if anyone is “forcing a hand,” it’s Vehemence by constantly raising his level of threat to everyone and everything around him.
I think I see how the fight will “stop” now. Vehemence will knock Max unconscious, and flee while the supers he’s just revived will be busy fighting each other, again.
“It’s not about you trying ot out violent him, but him out violenting himself.”
Itching powder!
:D
Of course, it wouldn’t be as elegant as making V go all apathetic & just stop doing *anything* but it would answer the question if V could out-violence himself…Would he flay all the flesh off of himself faster than expending more of his power could heal it?
Somehow I think that if you were a police officer/soldier and a person was attacking you, saying he wasnt going to kill you but just beat you unconscious, you’d probably still want to defend yourself and use deadly force if non-deadly force was just going to make him beat you more severel.
This comment strip is really just the place for lengthy comments isn’t it? The place where you lay out as much logic as possible in each comment. Heck i’!m tempted to just keep ranting to lengthen this comment and prove a point.
As long as it’s not just an ad hominem attack and you base it on what I actually say, rather than a diatribe, feel free.
I already went down that road out of frustration trying to be humorous, and that backfired (which I regret – apparently I’m not much of a comedienne). At least I wasnt trying to call people names or telling them to leave.
Yes, he did state early on that his “pool” of energy depletes naturally over time. Well, indirectly of course, but still …
However, here’s issues in regards to that.
Item One, how Big is the Pool?
Item Two, how Fast does the pool drain?
Item Three, how Efficient is his usage of the pool?
Item Four, how Efficient is his absorbtion of energy for the pool?
Usually when you’re talking about characters with a power set like this, one of those those categories will be their Weakness. Often times, but not always, it will be a critical Weakness in that exploiting it can be a near instant Game Over for them. Usually its just a weakness that can be used against them by smart enemies.
Maxima does have various weaknesses in the usage of her powers. As noted from her ability to ‘push’ her Pool. Of course her power level is significantly high, so its not likely you’d see that weakness come into play very often.
Vehemence, besides needing to “prime the pump”, has shown Zero Weakness in Any Area.
On the contrary, 2 and 4 are his weaknesses. For both of them he used a massive set-up to circumvent them (calling all the supers to a massive brawl). He isn’t very good at absorbing third-person violence and his pool will drain over time by itself.
If the team faces vehemence again while he is powered down, a bullet through the head at the first opportunity will do. Superpowers that need time to power up during a fight are basically worthless once your enemies know about them. You’ll just be a high-priority target.
That said, the intelligence of ARC is pretty limited. They seem to be dependent on gathering info about enemy superpowers during a fight. That is basically suicidal, when coupled with the fact that they demonstrated all of their powers at a nationwide press conference themselves.
Well if nothing else I’m looking forward to seeing a little more Math shenanigans.
Waking up everyone as a power for Vehemence is a bit much.
Not a power, just him expelling vehemic energy
Does Veheence have an ARC sound effect because he’s an ARCvillain?
Not only that, but his cranium “zork”‘s and “crack”‘s — and shoots green pulses.
It’s nonomotopoeia. Electric arcs.
https://www.howitworksdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/electric-arc.jpg
Were the handcuffs impaling the wrists like a tetanus shot?
My read on that is that they’re sedative-injecting handcuffs that make sure everybody stays dosed with whatever Harem is injecting them with.
Liked the comic. Still like it, in fact.
Veery much unsure about the latest development. Either the whole battle gets re-done (which is boring – we just did it already), or they somehow finish it in a few panels…which is boring AND begs the question of why hadn’t they done so the first time around.
Well, some of that was that the ARC side didn’t know the powers of any of the people attacking them. Which of course begs the question of why the villain side didn’t wipe the floor with the heroes, since they at least had the benefit of (presumably, I’d sure want to watch the only game review tape if I was going into a superpowered fight) having seen the heroes at work. Which can be handwaved by the fact that these people were clearly not a team, some or many of them might not have ever met each other beforehand. And some of them didn’t really have their heart in it, such as SuperBarber and perhaps Hex.
So having the heroes take down the villains quickly won’t be that much of a stretch, given that they act as one team and the villains only do so in very small groups where they do so at all. Hell, there might be a lot more villains who just decode that restarting a fight they already lost just isn’t a very smart move, and that wouldn’t stretch believability either. Getting knocked unconscious is quite a body trauma, it isn’t at all as easy to pull off without permanently injuring or killing someone as the movies and comics make it out to be.
True, but it still seems unnecessary… unless it somehow leads to V being overcharged, or drained of power because they decide not to fight and sing Kumbaya or something.
You know, in regards to the whole “why didn’t the villains wipe the floor with the heroes”, do you think V could have had something to do with it?
I mean, a number of them voiced confusion towards the ends of their fights, and the whole thing was thrown together really fast. What if V hit them with a variant on the whammy Dabbler placed on Jabberwokky? That is, juiced them with a bit of Vehmic energy to make them more aggressive/violent than they normally would be so that they’d agree to take on the supercops.
That would explain their crumby teamwork/tactics. Crystal guy ignoring Heavenly Sword’s instructions, etc. It also explains why the good guys, who aren’t jinxed, were able to work together and defeat them.
Actually, my guess is that Opal pulls all of the villains out of the fight.
That breaks this stalemate, sets V up as an extremely dangerous recurring villain and doesn’t require any deus ex machina.
Assuming she’s not a ‘violence zombie’ or needs to fight from some sort of violence mind control.
If she was just thinking rationally and reasonably, yeah that’s what Opal would do from what I’ve seen (if she had the time to focus on it). But why would V wake them all up, including her, with yellow glowy eyes the same color as his ‘tattoos’ if it was to let them do that? Especially since right before he does it, he’s saying how he has a way to get strong enough to kill Maxima.
Well, Sydney’s Wait Stop kind of implies that any attacks going on is mostly so that they can Flee.
If they were attacking him, the last two panels would have probably shown something going toward his body. They’re not. They’re going away from his body, which means they’re attacking anyone who is preventing them from Escaping.
Otherwise, why would Sydney be facing Away from V instead of toward him? If they were attacking Him she’d be facing V and doing that whole hand wavy routine.
Ergo, they’re fleeing. Which means he just wasted V Juice, not that it matters really. He’ll have enough Juice until they find a way to flat out end the fight, regardless of how much V Juice he has.
No. They’re fighting each other and whoever’s nearby. Random violence. Not ‘trying to get away’ Sydney is trying to tell them to stop fighting since it’s making Vehemence even stronger (since V’s plan is to use the violence to get strong enough to crush Maxima or electrocute her despite the armor)
Vehemence isn’t probably being attacked by the villains waking up because *most* of them know nothing about V’s betrayal when Opal tried to ‘port them out.
So either they’re either trying to renew the fight against ARC in general, or they realized how quickly they were beaten the first time & trying to get away. Of course, I also think that the “flight or fight” response here also depends on whether or not V’s wake up call infused them with some extra aggressiveness.
Either way, Sydney’s trying to stop them from feeding V more energy & probably going to tell them how he betrayed them at first. So, to find out if they start attacking Vehemence we’ll just have to tune in next week…Same Grrl time, same Grrl channel.
With all the ranting going on, I thought I would mention that I, for one, am more than happy with what you are doing with the comic. I am eager to see where this goes – wherever it goes. This comic has gone in many unexpected directions, and I love it.
As for the pace, well, that is something you have to get used to. Of course everyone would like to have the comic daily, or heck, even hourly – but you have to be able to appreciate the work that goes into it. That, and the fact that it is awesome content for free.
+1
+2
and yes for hourly updates
Hush or you’ll scare Dave away.
I don’t know about Dave, but even when I was at my most artistic, I couldn’t script, draw, color & post a new page every hour either…And wouldn’t even suggest that he does.
Otherwise, a +1 for AeonOfTime stating what the *majority* of us have been expressing, if a bit more verbosely.
Curious. Do you have any of your artistic stuff around besides your avatar?
Never posted any on the net anywhere. A lot of it is what I drew before there even *was* an internet more advanced than Prodigy or Compuserve. The only thing I’ve uploaded in any way is the avatar you see here, cropped in different ways for different Board-specs for avatar usage.
Ah, internet. AOL or Compuserve. How did I survive without you?
Oh yeah. Transformers. :D Giant robots were cool.
+1
Agreed. Great work.
Thanks. :) I really wish I could post the pages I’m working on right now cause that’s where the fight starts to turn and the humor starts to kick back up. I’ve missed it too. :)
I really wish you could, too. All bitching aside, you really do great work- I wouldn’t care, otherwise.
That would be a welcome thing. I never minded the ka-pants power because it was for humor’s sake.:)
Hurry up Thursday! Thanks for the heads-up.
I’d just like to point out that even though the tone is not always the friendliest, all the ranting and arguing is also a bit of a compliment towards the artist. After all, people don’t get frustrated about things they’re not passionate about.
Personally, I can’t recall having been this invested in a webcomic, ever.
It’s also good to see that the rage-phase is largely over, and that discussions are getting more civilized again. I hope this trend continues, and that we can keep talking about something we care about in a friendly manner, even if, or maybe especially if, we disagree.
Hugs, anyone?
+1
[insert: Group Hug]
To macho for hugs, otherwise in complete agreement.
No hugs. Cookies, however, I’ll take that.
Fist Bump! Great comic is great. Keep writing it, I’ll keep reading pretty much no matter what.
Ohh now I get it, V wakes them up to start fighting, but Sydney convinces them to stop.. and then Dabbler convinces them to have a huge orgy powering her up strong enough to kick V’s butt. yes that could totally work now.. We have enough awake male’s and females.
have to admit … I am also getting somewhat tired of this interminable never-ending fight with the invulnerable rage machine.
Speaking of Rage Machines …
At least The Hulk was Interesting!
So was the Mandarin. But not in the latest Iron Man movie…
you know a more reasonable counter to V exists and has already been established, they just need to screw until Dabbler’s at the same power level V’s at now…
Que DaveB advertising a slipshine for sale followed by a powered Dabler vs V power off until they are both exhausted, in the end “love” conquers all. :P
Hmm, not only is he waking everyone up, if their eyes are any indication Vehemence is either controlling them or boosting their ‘strife’ attributes.
While I originally expected Sydney to figure out how to defeat V, given the new situation I actually expect him to call off the fight on his own. While the super battle gave him a ton of power, he doesn’t seem interested in becoming some kind of mega-villain, so having all the “chaff” wake up and start all over would be an annoyance for him. He clearly doesn’t actually want to kill the team, or he would have done so from the beginning, while Vektor and company were obviously aiming to kill if possible.
It would be a nice twist to have V help the team wipe up Vektor’s group again, and then book it before they can resume trying to subdue him.
Or he could simply run off while they’re all busy fighting. He feels like he’s buff enough.
He wants to kill MarySumixa. He thinks he has to, in case he encounters her when he isn’t at Maxima strength in the future when she can just kill shot him. So he isn’t going anywhere until he accomplishes this.
Or at least that’s his stated intent. We know from the comics before this
flashbackyearsback that MarySuemixa is alive and well, with nary a scar to show for this encounter.Well… there is that part where he couldn’t kill Max, and the fact he needs to kill Max before she kills him, neither which, contrary to some, are not bluffs. I don’t know – actually, no, I know why people want to see V on ArcSWAT’s side, but I don’t see how it’s possible. With the crap he started, people just need to accept he’s a villain.
Anyone done the “Stop! Hammer time!” joke yet?
Okay now, Stop. Collaborate and Listen.
Oh yes, that one is much betterer
Is that Shadow-crushed-nuts beside Heaven? How long before he remembers his nuts have been cracked? :D
I think whatever V did has them ignoring injuries. Which is really not good. I think the first time SB’s goolies rattle together, he’s gonna pass out again. Or spot Sydney and run screaming into the darkness.
Eddi, that reminds me of a story I read somewhere. Character was an extra on a set for a TV series. He had to react to a monster that had just broken free and looked like it was coming his way. Of course not being a professional, he was stunned by the explosion and everything. His response at seeing the monster?
“Mommy” as he dropped his bag.
The director loved it and kept it. Because it was Not what you’d Expect.
Just like the Hairdresser! I kind of hope that we see him again. Even if its only a cameo role. And Hex … I’m sorry, but out of all the villains that were cast here, she came across as the most interesting. A few others I found interesting was Hex, Concretia, Opal and Mr Green Hair. Concretia for her power set (which could make for some interesting fights depending on limits on matter she can absorb or how long she can go without a ‘body’). Opal & Mr Green Hair … I dunno why. They just seem like one of those Unlikely Duo types.
I have dubbed Mr. Green Hair (Vektor?) as ChiaPet. I hope Budget Halo does something nifty with that squirrel. Let’s see how cocky Chuckles is when he has one of those furries down his ka-pants.
I’m with your choices for a villain team. Add Jabberwocky and Heavenly Sword. Maybe Glowbug if Hex has decided to quit the villain biz.
Possibly the only way for him to be recurring without the “oh god, is V, kill him now” on the second encounter (and exactly that happening as Max rips his spine clean out) is if the next time they encounter him it is as reluctant allies. Having to cooperate for mutual survival on occasion does give Max incentive for restraint. Alternatively… despite being a big guy, V could just stay out of sight while absorbing energy from the hero activities. I mean, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility to be around a corner, or chilling other side of a building.
Things seem to have calmed down. I seem to have calmed down (some… maybe after the whole fight is over I will even think that word thing was mildly humorous) and I haven’t done my own post. (just like two replies)
Well, people are saying lots of things about V that I have already answered and some people are answering the same way again for me so that’s good enough to leave alone. I’ve already explained a million times the 1,000 ways V can be a recurring villain WITHOUT getting his head blown off to no avail so moving on.
Did Vehemence just wake up and possibly heal a bit a whole pack of super villains that he has just betrayed into an ass whooping and whom’s leaders KNOW he has betrayed them?? Heck the leaders were BEATEN BY HIM AND HIM ALONE! (and I mean beaten as in bruised and battered) It certainly LOOKED like that wave was indiscriminate and woke EVERYBODY. Early on the telekinetic leader was the best chance to defeat him and now Opal might be depending on how fast she can whip up a portal before being spotted. I envision the entire team of super villains will now turn on him being directed, partially or in whole, by Sydney. Yes, Sydney gets her own team in her first fight. This does crappy things to Maxima’s budding in comic shown reputation but it has the potential to be so hilarious I might just be OK with it (We will have to fix Maxima later… *sigh* Don’t worry Maxi I’m sure Dave has glorious future plans for you that will help considerably if not ever quite repair this nasty first impression) it is a comedy after all.
Vehemence has now just handed every super power known, at one strength level or another, over to Sydney if Dave goes this route. And as many of her own team mates as she can sway many of whom have a huge suite of abilities. Plus a teleporter who can quickly go and get those 25 safety pins and stick of gum master plans always seem to need from base or any nearby business I’m sure (I need to commandeer this watermelon for the good of the whole city!)
Vehemence has used his amazing avatar of a god like powers to create General Sydney. She has all the toys her comic book/gaming mind could have ever dreamed of.
I’m not sure what the plan will be but if it parallels the beginning of the boss fight with the entire two teams now having to defend Opal as she gets one of her big portal spells revved up against Vehemence it would be a funny reversal of the start where ARC was trying to get to her. (can she work inside Sydney’s shield to make portals that affect stuff outside? etc… )
Things are starting to look up for a well foreshadowed win. Even with that I expect Maxima to get a talking to on a few points when debriefed by the General. (not Sydney the real one) And possibly be picked apart on this performance either now or in some future by the media/press. At least we will get some interesting character growth for her out of this (its just weird to have character growth on a character we havn’t properly established in comic all that well yet……………………………………………… )
So that’s good. Mostly.
______________________________________________________
(just skip this section if you have heard enough about Vehemence for one day. I understand.)
Still having issues digesting the official explanation that makes it sound like V actually does develop “ANY” extra spontaneous powers he dreams up just because his tank is overflowing. Him being a one shot pony who spent the bulk of his adult life until now studying methods to turn that power into magic makes MUCH more sense. Its easier for me to believe someone with limited practice at lower power can force more powerful spells which he knows tons about to work DESPITE not much or any real life practice because he can push so much power into them (he should still botch a spell a bit or something but meh…) than it is for me to believe he can PERFECTLY alter reality TO HIS EXACT DESIRE in a spell like manner despite having no learning or experience just because he has big metaphysical muscles now. That’s hard to digest. At the very least forcing something to happen perfectly that he has no idea how to do should have burned enough power for us to see a sweat drop or something on extreme close-up
By the way that is not me saying Vehemence is overpowered. A villain’s job is always to put themselves in a position to become more powerful than their opposition. Much more if possible. V’s just done a great job of it early on is all. Its me saying I don’t like how its been explained to me, partially by the Author, so far that he got that level of power or perhaps ABILITY is a better word than power. But Dave seemed to suggest last update in the comments that there was more of V’s situation to be exposed in future so I’m hoping to learn something that explains this (possibly reversing what I’ve heard so far and going with the learned mage wannaby theory….. *prays*).
And yes I know everyone has gone ten rounds about this and related issues of late but at least I offer the solution along with it: Vehemence as a learned mage wannabe for most of his adult life at least makes this palatable if still makes his flawless alteration of reality a little bit much (I’m old school where PRACTICE makes perfect)
(OK other than a sentence in the summary you are now almost home free!)
_______________________________________________________
SUMMARY: The old griefs with V and Maxima have not yet been answered either wholly or partially (as I was told they will by the end of the fight. So still lots of time. ^_^’) But we’ve been given a major tool for General Sydney to use to approach V’s defeat or at least negation from multiple angles. And its pretty funny that Vehemence gave it to her! XD (why did he bother knocking them out if he was just gonna wake them up again. heh)
>>>>>>General Sydney<<<<<< for the win!
This was a really, really long post; do I get a cookie for finishing it?
For the record, you’ve summarized a lot of the issues pretty well- not precisely, but that would be impossible, given that I don’t think any two people share exactly the same two issues. I think you’ll find David K. Storrs has done an even better job of summarizing the complaints.
As for your solution… well, I won’t say that it’s impossible; I won’t even say that it’s unlikely. I will say that, under the circumstances, I think it would be a rather unsatisfying outcome- and this is from someone who really does like Sydney.
Its really only likely due to the comedic nature of this comic in general and Sydney in particular. Reminds me of when some bandits brought Kagome to their boss to be killed but he was controlled by a demon raven who turned on them as well. As he tried to kill everybody Kagome took charge and started telling them what to do to maybe survive and fight back. They started calling her boss. Not saying this is like that but the comedy gold of them obeying Sydney would be similar if done just so. So I though it might happen cause of the rule of funny.
Though I agree it would be best if it was both hilarious and made sense. Oh well.
I really thought I used to write long posts.
I don’t think Opal would be able to make panels outside of Halo’s shield while within Halo’s shield (a guess) for one reason. Harem wasnt able to teleport through Halo’s shield when she was being attacked by Shadow Boxer and stated that explicitly. Pretty sure her shield blocks all teleportation attempts through it.
portals, not panels
You are probably right about the shield blocking all teleportation attempts passing through it. I am curious though about what would happen if someone inside the shield attempted to teleport to another location within the shield. Or alternatively what would happen if Sydney walked or expanded the shield into an existing portal, it would be almost funny if the shield got sent through the portal ahead of Sydney leaving her behind and unprotected. More likely though is that it would simply disrupt the portal, oh well…
I don’t see any reason why someone inside the shield couldnt teleport to somewhere else inside the shield, as long as it’s not teleporting through it. Wouldnt be inconsistent with what’s been shown so far in the comic.
However I think if you mean Sydney going through a portal within the shield, it would just probably have the shield reform around Sydney again as a center of the shield area, and if the other portal was then outside the shield, it would probably just ‘cut off’ and close (that’s just conjecture though – an educated guess).
I imagine that now that they’ve discovered this property of her shield, we’ll see a scene in the future in which Sydney and Harem extensively test the metaphysical barrier properties of her shield!
Wait, what property of her shield? That people can’t teleport through it?
Age old dilemma. Too long and no one reads it or they skim it too much. Too short and everyone misunderstands you or comes up with a lot of “counters” that you thought were to obviously wrong to bother mentioning in your original post. You really can’t win. But sometimes its fun to try.
No General Sydney here, Observer. Sorry.
Panel seven shows attacks flying that aren’t V’s. Above the lightning, which is his. Combine that with Sydney’s comment of “Wait! Stop!” it implies that all the bad guys are trying to get the Flock Out Of Dodge! So no sudden “army” at her disposal.
I thought it implied they were all starting to fight again. The last couple of panels have explosions and whatnot in the background.
Well no of course not right away. Her best bet is negotiating with their leaders who just got trashed by V pretty nastily. Of course how she will get the authority to honor any such deals would probably involve some quick communicator conversations. But if possible then the leaders could direct as many of them as will listen to the new plan.
She’d better act fast though since now that things have gone beyond pear shaped Opal and her Vektor (sp?) first move will probably be to drop the team and run. Perhaps bluffing them that some sort of tracking unit has been placed in them while they were out so running isn’t a viable option?
If Vekter is still hurt enough to be unconscious and Opal comes to and sees that maybe she will attack on her own?
At any rate I don’t think waking these people up was an entirely wise move on V’s part.
I think the point of V’s ‘unlock-everyone’s-handcuffs-and-wake-them-from-unconsciousness-despite-their-injuries-or-sedatives-keeping-them-unconscious-with-an-uncontrollable-instinct-to-fight’ power (whew, long power name) is that it wakes everyone up, regardless of injuries, so they can all start fighting and creating more violence until Vehemence has enough power to kill Maxima, even in her max-armored setting. Even if they attack him, it still counts as violence and at this point, he’s so invulnerable and powerful that it isnt likely to hurt or even make him blink, since Vektor (for example) wasnt able to hurt V before all the supers-vs-V fighting even started.
Yeah, I really don’t know at this point whether it makes them want to be violent or just made them feel so awesomely invigorated (falsely?) that they feel perfectly fine to continue what they were doing before being nabbed. Like they just feel bursting with juice and want to use it and fighting was the last goal they had in their heads before going down. But if they are violence zombies then I guess there will be no negotiations. *shrugs*
Yeah. I don’t really know if any of them are going to listen to Sydney if they’re ‘violence zombies’ – they’ll just fight ANYONE. Which would at least explain why Opal wouldnt just teleport away with Vektor (which I think is more likely for Opal to do if she was thinking in a non-ragey way, given what we’ve seen of her so far). Unless of course she’s all ragey and directs it at Vehemence randomly, and wind up forming a portal under him, and another in orbit or something. At which point Maxima and him could both fall through, Maxima could get freed, and would survive (assuming Maxima can survive the vacuum of space, which is still within suspension of disbelief if she’s a captain ersatz type of Superman-level power thing).
Personally, I’m inclined toward the “energy boost” version rather than the “mind control” version. Math clearly has some of his personality showing, which – despite the size of his ego – would probably not show up in a zombie. I agree with some earlier posters that Shadow Boxer might be an excellent test of this theory.
Also, I appreciate the effort you put into your main post above. I may not agree 100%, but it’s nice to see the train of logic.
Again, that doesnt exactly make sense for Vehemence to do something which just gives everyone, including people who can teleport him out of there, an ‘energy boost’ without some sort of drive to attack each other. Also not sure that ‘woo, that’s better than smelling salts’ is enough to determine that it’s his personality.
After all, he hasnt talked about boobies yet.
Belated thank you on enjoying my post.
No reason to agree with me 100%. If you go back and read all of my posts (seriously don’t do that I’m almost as prolific as Pander and much longer on occasion! ) you would find many contradictions and the occasional outright complete reversal as I wrestle with the various potential futures each update represents or someone else’s unique take on the issues presents.
I spend hours a week on these silly things. Usually happily. I guess you could say I know how to stretch the value of a free comic! XD XP
Without whatever strategic genius Sydney or somebody cooks up only Opal has much chance to affect him by herself. And half of that is because I don’t really know the full spread of her portal powers let alone if she can do general magic/has other powers etc…
If she’s pissed enough at him to try and they can defend her better than last time (say both teams run interference). But yeah its hugely not likely.
I am calling it right here. “For whom the death tolls” vs. “Vehemence” in round 2. It will either be comical with death toll annoying vehemence in a futile attempt to provoke him. Or it will be the turning point in the fight with vehemence’s violent nature making him unable to resist attacking the super with the perfect counter to everything. Either way I bet “Death Toll” is really unhappy about being manipulated as fodder.
Well there is nice foreshadowing for it in the face V already messed up and punched Anvil because obscuring dust made him think it was Maxima. Sydney saw this so a bait and switch plus obscuring dust/fog could be a part of General Sydney’s plan.
another related possibility would be for Opal to open a portal, directly in front of one of Vehemence’s punches, to Death Toll, activating his Nemesis ability…
I can’t think of a single reason why that wouldnt work.
Yeah, though sometimes Death Toll’s “Nemesis” power defends him without doing any damage to the one attacking him. Like when he negates fire with ice. And even when it does damage them it might merely be enough to stop their attack. Who knows how many times you would have to get V to connect with Death Toll in order to get the dice to roll the correct number to activate the part of the Nemesis Table of Effects that sucks out all of his stored Vehemic energy. PBS’s power is so random really.
Course none of that makes it not worth a try. Could roll a natural 20 on the first throw. :)
Technically speaking, the best counter to Vehemence by Death Toll would simply be to shut down whatever allows him to process vehemic energy, rather than ‘sucking it out.’ Then he suddenly loses his arm again, shrinks, and loses anything above whatever his base powers are.
It would be funny if he can still take in and hold vehemic energy but can’t process it. Maybe it damages him then?
In wrestling terms, we would call Vehemence a Japanese Table. But we could say the same about Maxima.
Thing is, there’s got to be a way to beat Vehemic users, even when they’re at their strongest. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be very handy for offensives.
I wanted to chime in with something among the, as DaveB generously puts it, spirited debate.
The story is not complete yet. Not even the section of the story that could have an ending. I like a lot of things about his story and there are some I don’t. In particular, I actually don’t like just about any aspect of the Maxima Vs. Vehemence fight at all, both on a personal level and from a writing perspective. And indeed it’s fun to discuss this sort of thing as it happens, I’m not saying people shouldn’t talk about it. But a lot of people seem to be passing judgment, both on this fight and aspects of his story and that’s not good.
It’s possible that when he finishes the fight it will all make sense. Even Vehemence’s seeming endless energy and ridiculous level of power might come to make some sort of sense. There are explanations out there that makes this all still work in the sense of the narrative. I can say that even with the flaws I see in what’s happened so far. Admittedly, the longer this goes and the more out of control V’s power level gets, the fewer those options are.
Essentially what I’m saying is give the story a chance. This could all make sense, and I’m rooting for whatever Dave has planned.
I think the debate so far boils down to the following:
*) This fight started on page 200, meaning about 8 months ago real-time. That’s a long time to spend on one event.
*) FWTDT would have been a great final boss. He batted the team around, made them look like idiots, and then got defeated in a satisfying way that let them all participate and get their own back. That would have been a great place to stop.
*) Instead, V suddenly showed up. This wasn’t a narrative necessity and stretched things out much farther.
*) V’s powerlevel is so high that everyone except Maxima is reduced to just standing around. This takes out a lot of potentially interesting interactions.
*) Maxima is supposed to be the next best thing to a god, yet she’s being taken to school. There’s problems on both sides here — she was so cocky that it feels kinda good to see her get a beating. On the other hand, it doesn’t really play to the “grrlpower” theme (to put it mildly) and it Worfs her before she’s even really been shown to *be* as badass as she claims.
*) No one (hopefully with the exception of Dave) can really think of a satisfying way for this fight to end with all of the existing plot elements resolved. Maxima can’t die because this is a flashback. V can’t die, because Dave’s said V is supposed to be a recurring villain. V can’t win, because he’s said that he is determined to kill Maxima who we know can’t die. V’s powerlevel has gotten so high (with strong indications that there’s no top end in sight) that there isn’t a plausible way for him to be just driven off based on the resources we know ARCSwat to have.
Given the combination of all those things, I’m not surprised some people are feeling disgruntled.
Interesting thought, though…what about X? He’s part of ARC and we haven’t seen him in the fight. It’s never stated exactly what his powerset is, so maybe he’s got something that would work….sneak up real close and then use non-violent martial arts (aikido, judo, tai chi) to pin V down? I dunno, but maybe something.
Oh I didn’t say that people didn’t have reason to be disgruntled. I actually agree with somewhere in the high 90% of what you just said. I can come up with a couple of possibilities for fight resolution that make these complaints not so bad when looking at the total picture, at least in my mind. That’s all I was saying. Give it a chance that there might be a resolution that works or it will be a self fulfilling prophecy that the end of this section is bad.
As far as X is concerned, that’s a good question. I feel like his cloaking power is technology based and he might not have any super powers of his own (but then Peggy doesn’t either, she’s just skilled.) I’m not sure X could have anything useful to add to the fight against Vehemence, even if he is present.
X could also be a she.
Not saying that as some sort of feminist thing. Just saying you can’t actually tell whether X is a he or she yet. Everything’s covered and if his/her power is from technology, not meta-powers, then it would explain why X is neither musclebound-and-chiseled nor has an athletic-yet-hourglass figure like most naturally-born supers. His/her being horny from Dabbler’s lust aura also wouldnt really cement that X is a man or a woman, since it apparently affects both genders rather effectively, and we can’t hear what X’s voice sounds like (plus judging from X’s peculiar speech bubbles and their coloring, he/she might have a speech synthesizer type of thing going on so the characters can’t either)
That would actually be a nice twist for a later story – that X is a woman instead of a man as most people possibly think. I’d like to see the reaction from Sydney.
Obligatory anime reference since that seems to be a thing here now….
Agent D from Project A-Ko.
@David K Storrs
1:
It is. However, we don’t know just how much comes out of this that is relevant to where Sydney is at in the here and now. The fight ending at Death Tolls could have resulted in a far different outcome- particularly once you take into account that there may be other parties out there beyond this one, as far as non-arc superhero groups, bad or not.
Eight months is a while, sure. It however, isn’t daily updates, every day. It isn’t an issue per update. Considering how long it takes for people to pay off houses and cars, I wonder why they don’t give other things they enjoy a chance.
2:
I agree. However, the fight with V isn’t over yet. Dave is the only who can say whether something as equally fitting rounds out the night.
3:
I don’t really agree with labeling anything a “necessity”. It isn’t air or food or shelter. It is the author’s whim- and when a story is unfinished, saying it is not important to the story is potential for feet in your mouth down the road. Of course, it might just be that because I see people using this every time a character dies, or something else equally as significant, whether that is the only instance in the entire story where that particular act occurs, that it just irks me every time it gets thrown out.
4:
So I should keep punching a ghost because eventually I might have an effect? Or I should let the people carrying anti-spirit weaponry/etc and the like do their job unless I can think of something that actually works, especially when if the twenty other equally incapable people like me that are there we might get in the way of their ability to actually do exactly that? Sydney has been helping, when she can. Peggy did, too, and she’s not even a super.
5:
A broken nose. Yeah, no, that’s nowhere near what it takes to defeat a god in my books. Even forcing Max onto the defensive, doing no damage since that is laughable to declare it as anything other a stalemate.
Chessmasters don’t always win, and even when they do, they don’t come up against new pieces every game, or old pieces with new rules.
6:
I can think of plenty of ways. What I can’t do, is apply them to the Grrlpower universe. I don’t know enough about the characters we’ve seen a bit of, we know even less about those introduced in this fight. We don’t know the capabilities of everyone in Arc, or what Max went through in the fight she had against the mysterious presumed dead individual that fought Max to a standstill.
For all we know, there are regions of the Middle East that were turned to glass, and Max received extensive medical treatment extending even to regeneration of limbs. And that doesn’t cover if it was a 1v1 or not, and if there were casualties.
As far as solutions, I can think of one that while I admit I don’t read enough of the comments and may have been proposed already: Someone else intercedes and provides the opportunity for V to escape. Doesn’t matter how far from now in the fight it occurs, it explains him being a recurring villain and does always with the qualms about Max being Worfed just because the first time we see her fight she isn’t a complete and total Mary Sue.
There are actually still a(n admittedly small) number of solutions that have been proposed in the comments over the last month or so that 1) could solve this rather handily, 2) have not yet been negated by further developments, and 3) have not yet been obviated by anybody else’s logical arguments. Since DaveB has told us the end of the battle is near, I won’t deign to enumerate them (also, my memory sucks), but I will say that I’m still waiting to see if one of my solutions wins the pool ^.^
A Psi level threat is pretty weaksauce in 40k, but a Psi+ is just under Chaos God levels of power.
Eh, I gave up on V ever being interesting when he had the ‘regeneration only makes me stronger’ ass-pull. If he ever shows back up, I’ll probably just wait until the next issue comes out to pick up the storyline.
What I’d really like to see is Sydney realizing “Hey, even if we can somehow manage to subdue him, there’s NO WAY there’s a prison built that can hold him. Heck, prisons are some of the most violent places around, he’ll charge up just by being there.” Which then goes to “Let’s see you regenerate a decapitation” and bust out the PPO. Since he is so much taller than Sydney, she’ll be aiming primarily UP, avoiding most incidental blow-through damage (barring the odd satellite perhaps), and no one can argue that there hasn’t been enough escalation to warrant the use of lethal force at this point.
Of course, that’s never going to happen, simply because Sydney doesn’t think along those lines, and it is pretty clear that he’s supposed to be a recurring villain. Which he can’t do if he is dead. Personally, I think it would be best for the comic to have him never return, but I’m not the one writing it, so it isn’t my decision.
Yeah… while I, too, would like V to just plain die, I would not like to see any of the main characters breaking with their personalities in order to do it. Maybe V can just have an aneurysm. That would satisfy me and be entirely realistic.
You see, I’m in the same boat. My initial impressions were overall positive. Here’s an undeniably evil villain, but he had manners, panache, chutzpah, style… he may have wanted to beat you down, but he didn’t want to add insult to injury. He had the perfect personality for a reoccurring villain.
So [then] you get what we had here last week. Which is the way he wants it. Well… he gets it. I don’t like it, any more than you.
And now I can’t manage any emotional response greater than an eye-roll.
I liked Vehemence at first because he was, as a few posters called him, the “gentleman brawler.” Not a jerk, not wanting to hurt people, just really enjoying a good fight far too enthusiastically. Even when he revealed that he drew energy from violence, I thought was suitably dramatic and kind of a cool power actually. But his power cap really needed to be significantly lower than it apparently is. Or you know, it just needs to exist at the very least. I’m not convinced he actually has a cap at this point.
The “regeneration makes me stronger” thing was the final straw for me too. It instantly moved him from a relatively positive spot on my list to near the bottom.
He could have been a dapper gentleman, an Affable Villain, who after proving his worth against Maxima, getting bloodied, but bloodying her, would simply vanish. With the last words being, “I look forward to seeing the rest of your team match my expectations.”
Now That would have been awesome. Creepy. But awesome. Knowing there is a boogeyman out there willing to try and escalate things so as to make the whole team Stronger, just so he can have a good match against Each And Every Member of the team.
I could have liked that. Even if he Was a Villain.
Now I’m just hoping for a Deus Ex Machina in the form of something like his own power going haywire, and his arm imploding in a rush of Vehemic Energy, followed by a strange explosion. And what the light show is over, a small crater with residual Vehemic Energy. And no signs of V. IE his departure was not by his own choice. Or maybe as the explosion occurs a “Damn You!” or “Not Again!” moment.
and my attempt at quoting the first 2 paragraphs of your response did not work right lol. Gotta figure that out.
I don’t know that it would have been okay even then- but I’ll grant you that it would have been better than this.
I generally feel that the best way in stories to fight a hero who is physically top tier is not to make a villain who is even stronger with ‘as-he/she-needs’ powers, but rather to have someone fight the hero in areas of weakness, not attacking their strength (physical might). Or in Unbreakable how Samuel L Jackson’s character does with Bruce Willis’s character.
V did that already when he threw Anvil. Maxima doesn’t really have a weakness other than that she’s not super-powerful in everything all the time, and you get to see that exploited on this very page. Your wish was granted.
Maxima might have various weaknesses. Judging from the guest comic, maybe she is susceptible to mental control/possession/etc. Like from that mummy person. Or maybe she needs to breathe and someone can turn into a gas/or can control a type of gas to try to asphyxiate her (like Cloud 9 did with her aerokinesis-controlled cloud to one of the Hulk’s superhuman soldiers during World War Hulk). But instead, it’s strength vs strength, then ‘make up powers’ vs ‘everything thrown at him.’
And with Anvil, when he isnt in a position to throw Anvil (due to holding down Maxima) he develops a ‘wall of force which somehow doesnt let the kinetic absorber absorb it despite the fact that force IS kinetic if it throws her back like a rag doll’ powers. That’s not attacking someone where they are weak, rather than where they are strong. That’s attacking someone where they are strong by just ignoring the fact that they are strong because why not.
Oh, another weakness might involve some aspect of her golden skin, since no one knows what it actually is.
Another weakness can be Maxima’s family. I’m going to guess that she has family – possibly a brother – judging from the flashback of when Maxima as a teenager(?) first found out she can shoot plasma blasts when she was startled by that guy with the paper bag pop joke.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/720
Alright, everyone keeps commenting wondering how he’s waking up all the other villains and Math. V is creating electricity, essentially lightning bolts, that are coursing down his arm. If you’ve ever been outside during a lightning storm, you can smell a very strong odor. That odor is from ozone. Ozone, or O3, can be created through lightning strikes (just like the ones he’s creating here) and is detectable in small quantities by the average person. This, though, is like standing 10 feet from repeated lightning strikes, and as such the amount of ozone produced would be extraordinarily high, and therefore the smell would be a lot more concentrated, and would be able to wake up unconscious people. This also explains Math’s “Better than smelling salts,” quote. This makes the most sense to me. What do you guys think?
I don’t think the waking up has anything at all to do with electricity, it’s just a ‘magic make-people-wake-up-with-magic-adrenaline-and-violence’ power
Honestly, I don’t think much of anybody really cares how it works; those who love V can come up with explanations until my cow comes home (which will be a long time, since I don’t own a cow), but I doubt even they really care; most, I think, just want to convince those who hate V (like me) that we’re wrong and that we should get on the love train.
Those of us who hate V also don’t care how it works- it’s just one more example of why this character needs to suddenly die. And, yes, at this point, i would accept DEM provided it was of a genuinely permanent nature.
These are not two positions that are going to find a common ground. Sorry.
You are forgetting the group that is neutral on V but just likes to come up with reasons why it might work cause they like the challenge. (me for one) I already know how it COULD work based on what I’ve seen in the comic itself but sadly the author’s comments have been making it harder to believe that V knows this much about magic. That still leaves some kind of possession I suppose. Or perhaps he has linked himself to a higher power through those tattoo’s with some ritual and as he has more power is being granted insight to use said power as needed to further the goals of his Patron Higher Being.
High priest of a half forgotten diety or elder being of some kind. That almost doesn’t suck. They would have the knowledge and could grant it on an as needed basis as he proves himself worthy. They might not have the energy to grant him on this plane since their connection to it or their power has waned in recent milennia. Is there a mage in the house with a spell that can jam a radio to the Planes?
Yeees, that could almost work my precious… *blinks* Oh um… I should probably stop rambling and hit submit now. Heh O///O’
It’s similar to how people were saying he opened all the handcuffs with an EMP (or I incorrectly thought telekinesis). When actually it was a ‘wizard-indescriminately-open-everything-around-him’ power. Probably also meaning car doors, windows, flip phones, etc (which isnt really apparent since everything around them seems to already be destroyed).
Don’t forget pants and shirts!
That was a power mainly in order to have a punch line to a genre-savvy joke though
Oh, wait you mean like everyone’s fly is now open.
Yes :)
Also, you’re missing how vulnerable this move made V: his heart is now open as well, he’s opened himself to attack and, now that everything is in the open, he has no place to go.
I… think it’s a ‘physically open everything’ spell, not a ‘physically and emotionally figuratively’ open everything spell.
Sort of like a level 1 Open spell in a Dungeons and Dragons rpg game (if i’m wrong about what level spell an Open spell is, I apologize. I’ve never played Dungeons and Dragons, only Abberant and Mage and Vampire).
Or maybe I need to realize that you’re joking, which I only realized after I wrote all this, but im going to submit comment anyway because I wrote all that already. :)
I was, indeed, just kidding :)
I could be wrong but I don’t think that smelling salts wake up people who are heavily sedated?
I guess that’s why it’s ‘better than smelling salts’ :) Just kidding – I understand what you mean though.
I think Math may be too familiar with the effects of smelling salts. So that’s his comparison where most mortals use coffee.
Math? Smelling Salts? Yeah. Probably from them being used around him to wake up guys who just couldn’t beat him. Mostly. Not always. Just mostly.
Wait- I’ve just figured it out! V’s power isn’t based on the violence in the strip; it’s based on the acrimony in the comments! Check it- after a relatively low-comment page, he lost his arm. That page spawned 998 comments, though, granting him the power to regenerate and get even more ridiculously powerful! That page was only slightly fewer comments, which prevented V from killing Max outright, and he hasn’t been able to generate that level of commentary since then, so he’s had to content himself with just being an overpowered douche instead of actually getting anything done.
That’s my new theory until someone comes up with a better one.
Oh Noes, he got TROLL REGENERATION !!
{ducks for cover}
Just wait- if he can get over 1,500 comments, he will transcend the feeble walls of his webcomic reality and come storming into this world!
Actually if he gets over 9,000 he’ll start roughing up all the other webcomics.
Nooooo!!!!111!!!!! A DBZ reference! Pardon me. ANOTHER DBZ reference!!!
Please spare Goblins. They’ve had enough tragedy in their webcomic already. Poor Klik :(
And they have only just managed to restart again :(
LOL…
…Could be worse, could feed also on the lenght of the comments.
Seriously, we’re reaching russian novelist level here!
In Soviet Russia, Novel write YOU (with all apologies to Yakkov Smirnov)
+1 [ding]
+1 [ding]
+1 [ding]
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I would actually bet that many of the comments complaining that V was over powered stem from a possible misconception about how his power functions. My current theory is that rather than the assumed and more common ‘spend/consume energy to get effect’ type ability his follows a different form whereby he simply needs to reach a certain energy state and many abilities become essentially free “at will” type powers. Alternatively he is using a spend/consume rule set but since the vehemic energy never leaves his absorption zone he gets it back as soon as the effect expires. Which would mean that rather than spending energy he is simply investing it to generate more violence. Provided that he doesn’t produce any effects outside of his absorption zone whatever he does is virtually free and his entire energy pool is available for every action. This would be true unless a) he creates an ongoing effect that doesn’t produce any additional vehemic energy, like a light source or something (thus decreasing his available energy pool because some is being used), b) he uses a range type ability producing effects outside his zone (any such energy would be out of range and thus lost), or c) he converts vehemic energy into some other form of energy that he can’t absorb rendering that energy unusable.
Actually when you get right down to it he is far less over powered than many other characters like the green lantern who’s abilities draw energy from the willpower of every being in the universe and the uses of that energy are pretty much only limited by the imagination of their wielder. V in contrast can only use energy generated within a pretty small (downright tiny by comparison) range, and by the effective density of violence he can cram into his zone without dying. Granted that inside his zone he might as well be a God once he has been able to power up, but as soon as you step outside that zone he probably can’t do very much. Even if he has ranged attacks he would still prefer to close the distance and smash you rather than use a ranged attack that would lower his available energy pool.
If this is indeed the case then the solution may actually be to run away (counter intuitive as that may be) because you are out of range you can use whatever you want as a method of propulsion (provided it isn’t violent enough that it extends into his range) he simply has to chase you because he doesn’t naturally produce as much vehemic energy as he would by beating on you (also presumably you are the only reasonably concentrated source of violence). By chasing you he expends energy in order to try to catch you and (assuming you are faster) his energy is consumed to generate speed and by his metabolism while he is unable to generate more from you. So the faster you make him run the faster he will lose energy.
It would be pretty amusing to see him try to move so fast that he spends his entire energy pool and can’t stop because he doesn’t have enough energy left…
Or, alternately, they stem from an attitude of “this character sucks, is overpowered, and serves no jusitfiable narrative purpose at this point in the story.”
Quit trying to tell me how I should feel. You can feel how you want to feel, I’ll feel how I feel. Mkay?
Maybe you should quit spamming it, then?
You have the right to express your opinion. However, you don’t need it in every thread on every page until the arc ends or something else appears you don’t agree with even more. That’s a disservice to your intellect.
And maybe you should eat a… banana.
Yeah, let’s go with that.
I have not gone after every thread or every post; I do, however, feel pretty passionately that people who feel they have a right to tell me what to do and how to feel can go and do something that even Dabbler would find distasteful with themselves.
That would be you, in case you missed it.
Translation: “You have the right to say what you want, but stop saying what you want – shut up, you’re stupid” …. very hypocritical considering your own posts have not exactly been exercises in brevity either.
Have you seen? He’s made another post that is the soul of wit and brevity!
Indeed! I saw but… tl;dr. :)
Purposefully misconstruing things to play the martyr is cool, ya know.
I’m not saying anything is wrong with discourse. Sitting there chanting “I’m bored”, or spamming nonsense, is what I was talking about.
I don’t understand what my loquaciousness has anything to do with any of that, either. In case you didn’t notice, I was trying to redirect whisked towards jovial civility, but go ahead and play up how patronized you feel.
I have not gone after every thread or every post; I do, however, feel pretty passionately that people who feel they have a right to tell me what to do and how to feel can go and do something that even Dabbler would find distasteful with themselves.
That would be you, in case you missed it.
And there goes any desire for further attempts at doing so, which along with your oh so affronted sarcasm, includes you, Pander. Maybe you two should be the ones to eat a banana.
meh, for some reason it italicized my attempts at quoting jak.
Actually, you know what- I’m done with you.
I don’t like you. I don’t care if you like me.
I’m going to continue doing what I want, I’m sure you’ll continue to get your jollies however you want, too. I think that’s everything I need to say to you.
“Quit trying to tell me how I should feel. You can feel how you want to feel, I’ll feel how I feel. Mkay?”
This seems like a bit of an over-reaction to me. Barring the single opening sentence, Thinker’s post is just lengthy speculation on the nature of V’s powers. Seemed much more “I had a cool idea on how this works” than “You’re wrong and here’s why.”
I could be wrong. But if I’m not I’d hate to see that kind of nerding out and imagination swatted down because of other people’s arguments and a slightly unfortunate attempt at a segue.
I may have overreacted; if, indeed, Thinker did not mean to say or imply that those of us who dislike V are, in fact, either 1) wrong and/or 2) stupid, then I apologize. It would be nice- although I won’t insist on it- if others who were feeling the self-righteous need to tell all the anti-V people that they were (paraphrasing) stupid, rude, whiny, militant feminist, little bitches would have the guts to also apologize.
Note, I am not saying that Thinker was one of these, but there have been more than a few of them, and it does tend to get my hackles raised, with predictable fallout.
Aye, a fair share of unpleasantness getting tossed around these days.
But there are still people willing disagree respectfully too! I’ve always found the grrlpower comments a cut above your average internet tidepool.
…Except for the “asphyxiate him with Halo’s shield” guys. Screw those guys.
Hey, that’s a great idea! Halo can asphyxiate him with her shield!
*Pander proceeds to get beaten over the head by everyone savagely*
Halo jumps at V and encases them both inside her shield. “Now there is no escape!”
V laughs uncontrollably till he faints from lack of oxygen.
Why has no one thought of this brilliant idea before? There’s no possible flaw to it!
*Pander continues to get beaten over the head by everyone*
Because it’s too brilliant!
And we ran out of whisky.
Also for the record I agree that a few apologies from both sides (and yes i have read to the end of the section and seen your apology) would go a long way towards easing and removing this weird and semi violent undertone that has been plaguing the comment section for the past few pages. Perhaps V’s abilities are affecting the readers (cue creepy music).
On a different and purely intellectual note, with absolutely no intention of causing offense or restarting any of this weird nastiness, I am curious as to where the piece about “Quit telling me how I should feel” came from. I will admit that there had been a disturbing quantity of that going around lately but I was pretty sure that my actual comment was pretty free of that stuff. If this annoys/irritates/provokes you then by all means ignore this post but I am honestly just trying to understand. So if you are up for it, where did all that stuff come from? Was it just an emotional distillation of stuff from other commenters? Or was there something in my post that set you off and if so why?
I apologize if I offended you, it was never my intent to tell you how you should or shouldn’t feel. I was merely trying to identify the source of your concerns and alleviate them to done degree. I am sorry if I was mistaken.
The problem with these posts is that only the words written come through, tone of voice and intent are sometimes hard to get across. And honestly I sometimes lose track of where my posts started out as the tend to be rather long winded as I attempt to expand upon theories already presented or fully flesh out the theories I have.
That was most gracious. Allow me to apologize for snapping at you, in that case.
Strangely enough, I never saw in Thinker’s post where he (or she) tried to tell you how to feel at any point in the theory. So why do you feel it’s necessary to accuse Thinker of doing that?
And why, exactly, are you trying to stir things up a full half-hour after all apologies have been leveled? I’m just curious, since this seems like a really dumb point to try and get me (or anyone else) raging again.
Don’t feed the troll. (or alternatively, he might not have read the apologies)
Actually I found a solution for that (or at least part of one). Before hitting submit, duplicate the tab and refresh the new one, scroll down to the bottom (or wherever your post will appear) and verify that it is still relevant and accurate with the addition of any posts made by others while you were reading/typing. It doesn’t work all the time, (I think there may be some delay somewhere) but it certainly helps.
You know, a thought occurred to me… Someone mentioned this is a “Flashback”…
Does anyone else wonder if maybe some of the BS that V is pulling is just that… BS?(Halo’s narrator for this fight yes? This could be a bit of an unreliable narrator thing going on…)
As for satisfying endings… My own predictions:
We move onto the next story arc without finding out how the fight ends right away, and how V got away/Max survived ends up surviving, but it’s hinted strongly that Max blames Halo… Then later it’s revealed that Maxima was bluffing about her electricity weakness and was just playing along because it was actually charging her power… But Halo fell for the bluff too and tried to save her by blasting V away with a PPO… V managed to block it with a shield spell but was still knocked back causing Maxima to miss the kill shot. V being smart and knowing that he doen’t have enough power to finish off all the threights to his life at this stage of the fight decides to make a tactical retreat(Possibly using the villains he just woke up to cover his escape.)
I will admit… that never even occurred to me.
Yeah. That didnt occur to me either. I was taking this whole webcomic storyline more as an in medias res (‘begins in the middle, then goes to the beginning’) type of storyline (like in the video games Max Payne or Gears of War or Uncharted 2) rather than a ‘jumping flashback to flashback’/analepsis type of storyline (like Beyond: Two Souls or Valkyrie Profile … or Assassin’s creed, if you consider the animus stuff to be like flashbacks).
I have read through a disturbing portion of the comments in the last dozen or so pages and as far as I can tell you are the first one to even consider that aspect of the situation. Kudos to you.
I like it. Slight addition is that Sydney’s calm resolve to literally walk up into the midst of him grappling Maxima (shield up and PPO in hand) actually drains him down several notches as it is a lack of violent response. She isn’t enraged she is saddened by the whole stupid fight.
Of course it would not be Deus Ex for her to be willing the PPO to be all knock back and next to no damage. It would come as a complete surprise to V and likely he would falter. The stick-to-the-ground spell was one-shot and only active when he concentrated on it, so I’m thinking “low-orbit” applies to the amount of Knock back involved. With him out of range all the Vombies can drop again as their boost drops away ( Aid to End AOE, limited to LOS ring, costs X2 END to maintain).
Wait… I’m very confused by what you just said. How does the PPO drain him several notches, and how is it not violent? Also how can she will the PPO to ‘be all knock back and no damage?’ And when was it said that the ‘stick to the ground spell’ was one-shot, rather than something he’s continually doing since the entire time, Maxima wasnt able to budge him, or Sydney? And … how would the PPO orb suddenly doing a power other than what it’s been shown and talked about as being capable of doing not be deus ex machina? And why wouldnt Sydney be mad? And why does being sad vs mad matter if you do a violent act? So many questions!
I don’t understand any of what you wrote. LOS ring? Costs X2 End? Wha? Seriously, wha? Did I just wander into a different comments forum?
I think those were all Champions power limitations- although I’m not entirely up on all the abbreviations the way I used to be, so I could be wrong.
Thanks :) Even with that explanation, I still don’t understand almost anything he said in that first paragraph either.
I admit that the formulae at the end lost me, but – as regards the PPO – I believe Scotto was saying that Sydney would be the calming force. (Ironic, perhaps.) He says that “Sydney’s calm resolve… actually drains him…”.
To your next question, all of V’s abilities minus the regeneration have been burst effects rather than continual. Not conclusive, I admit, but some evidence. Our limitation is that we can’t see everything the characters see, so – if that glyph is still circling V’s foot – a change of plan would be in order. Sydney wasn’t able to lift him, but that was with a different orb. I think in-comic history suggests that the PPO is of a quite different intent and power level than the Lighthook.
On your other questions: I have no answers.
… but….. but the PPO is not a ‘push’ power. It’s a big explodey blast cut tanks in half make forests and things go BOOM and KABOOM’ power. Also, MOST powers seem to have been continual, not bursts.
Being a giant
Increased strength
Increased invulnerability
Regeneration
Lightning/Electricution requiring max armor to just stay alive
Possibly the continued infusion of violence into everyone around him who was unconscious.
All the Orbs have settings –we have only seen the one on the force field orb she nicknamed the “embiggener”. The PPO specifically requires a “safety off” thought to fire so it seems it might be amenable to go for a non-killing mode if she thinks it.
The idea is her very action of walking into the midst of things and tsk tsking him over it all would be like pouring a bucket of water over a fire. Maybe not enough to quench but definitely enough to spoil his attention. Then the PPO would be used like a “go soak your head” plopping him somewhere in the nearest large body of water (I forget are they in Texas or what?).
Yes I occasionally lapse into Champions shorthand. Deal :) Guardians of the Galaxy (not the Marvel mess) PBeM for like 2 years will do that to you –and no its not running anymore (dammit_all),. My last pen and paper fix was >10 yrs ago. Ex-Smokers can understand.
Scotto, I feel your pain. I have to make due with playing Pathfinder with an old group of friends over RP Tools’ MapTools and TeamSpeak most of the time- which is not the same as playing a real superhero RPG. In my spare time, I sometimes write about heroes and read webcomics.
So… not an ex-smoker, but I still miss my fix.
I was suggesting that he would have to use up some of his reserve power to withstand the kaboom big exploady blast.(Possibly with the result of the kaboom being reduced to a push effect by his defensive magics, since as far as his limits are concerned it seems that they are basically “Casting spells depletes mana pool.” and “Violence directly caused by his spells do not restore as much mana as they consume”
Simply put:
Halo pulls the PPO out and basically tells him to back down or she’ll shoot.
Maxima starts to break free causing both V and Max to go for the kill shots only to be interrupted when…
Halo uses PPO (Big exsplosions lots of damage, Both V and Max end up surviving by dumping all of their power into defense and end up knocked away/buried under rubble/molten slag.)
V breaks out of the rubble first and decides that he needs to kill Halo now(Because he sees her as just as much of a threight as Maxima now due to the power of the PPO and the amount of power he has to burn through just to defend against such an attack, which is of course more than he gets back from the violence of the attack itself.(In other words while blowing off his arm was a violent act he spent more energy to generate a prosthetic than he gained from having his arm removed.)
Hilarious side thought… What if his magic pants/prosthetic arm and eyeball are permanent, but his size growth isn’t? This could lead to Depantsing inccadent number 2, and him in the hilariously akward position of having an over-sized prosthetic arm that is the same size he is…(Thus becoming a hindrance to his fighting ability since he can’t actually use the full strength of his replacement arm because the rest of his body isn’t strong enough to support it while his mana pool is running on empty, so he’s just kind of stuck awkwardly shuffling around while basically having to drag his left arm around with his left hand Addams family Thing Style…)
As for him generating limbs that are stronger than the original… Isn’t that an actual problem with real prosthetic limbs?(Where that strength can lead to further injury do to the rest of your body not being strong enough to support the use of said strength)
Anyways I figure countering obscenely powerful energy blasts would cost him more energy than he would gain from the violence of the blast itself…(Especially if they actually do manage to get him off the ground, though simply trying to get him off the ground would cause him to expend energy… )
Heck if his actions are anything to go by, he woke everyone up because he realized that he needs to maintain a high level of mana to not die in this fight…
I’m going to skip over most of your post because I think my opinions are abundantly clear and focus on the part of your post that I did find interesting- most notably the idea that his new arm- I hesitate to call it a prosthetic, since it’s entirely possible that it’s actually just an armored organic arm- might not shrink down when he does.
That, I think, would be hilarious and I could definitely get on board with that.
Regarding actual, real-life prosthetics, there was an article in a recent issue of Smithsonian that, if I read it correctly, suggested that the biggest problem with prosthetics was actually that they failed to provide sufficient power to offset how poorly they imitate the actual joints and flexibility of a natural limb. There’s a guy working on that problem, though, so a six-million-dollar future may actually be a possibility- and with a significantly lower price tag.
Somehow the html ate my link. Here it is, undisguised: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/future-robotic-legs-180953040/?no-ist
I hope this fight becomes known simply as “The Steakhouse”.
Many Chapter onward: “And this here’s Opal, she was one of the key players at the Steakhouse. We have to keep her sedated…” etc.
At least The Steakhouse can’t be turned into a “noodle incident” like Maxima’s Mosque Moment was…
Besides, Sydney already had her own personal noodle incident during lunch with Peggy.
;)
Noodle incident? Was anyone even eating noodles at the steakhouse?
You know? the noodle incident? The one where Sydney had lunch with piggy? and then Sydney had to meet the nurse?
That awkward moment autocorrect screws up.
“The one where Sydney had lunch with Peggy?
I misunderstood MidnightDStroyer’s post. Thought he was saying the Steakhouse fight would become known as ‘the noodle incident’
Nobody even ORDERED pasta.
Oh crap I missed you making that same joke.
Boo, me. :<
I know I’ve said this before, but I’d REALLY like, considering how close V’s face is to Maxima’s hand, if Maxima puts her hand against his face and -quickly- changes from mostly armor to mostly plasma blast and blow his head clean off. I mean… her hand is already just a couple of inches from where his face is if she moves it from V’s upper arm to V’s head. Even can think of a boss comment she could say “I told you the next time would be your head.”
I know it’s not going to happen, but still…
She takes lethal damage from V’s constant pressure and energy attacks as she releases the energy to blow V’s mind.
Dabbler makes the Maxi-bot 2.0 android to keep up appearances. (they claim she was hospitalized with heavy injuries in the line of duty but in fact she died) The next most experienced, non “consultant”, member of the team takes field command but in smaller groups everyone ends up relying on Sydney’s out of the box thinking more and more.
Deus takes tissue samples of both V and Max that Harem collected from the fatal battle and begins working on clones and combinations of their DNA. After 2 years in comic time (15 years for us with time skips) All the clones and chimeras have died so Deus resorts to magic to stabilize the latest attempt a small child like body vaguely seen floating in milky fluids in a vat but through a misunderstanding of the spells true nature gets more of the originals then he bargained for. The resultant soul spliced creature is seemingly at war with itself and a danger to everything around it up to and including the planet. Woobie: Destroyer of Worlds.
Please don’t theorize some Grrlpower version of the Spider-Man Clone Saga, I beg you sir.
That’s actually perfectly reasonable seeing as Max doesn’t really seem to need much charge-up time for her boom, or for switching power distributions.
Now I want this.
V is keeping up constant energy attacks and pressure so it would be a suicide bombing if she could manage it at all. Though I sense this would actually make a growing proportion of the readership happy at this point.
‘Possible’ suicide bombing that will definitely take out the threat, which she ‘might’ survive long enough for the healing doctor to heal her…. ie, heroic soldier’s death….
vs
Definite death at V’s hands, after which he goes off to cause more chaos unchecked with the only person V’s concerned about opposing him being dead.
She could “go limp” due to the electric attack (in his mind). Then whisper something which he would just have to lean in to hear (gloating). After all, he is powering up one last time for the kill shot but has “complete control” of the situation.
So many possibilities…
… you just wanted an excuse to write ‘go limp’ didnt you?
+1
I did indeed, but not there really. The possibilities idea was meant to go with the idea of putting all her stats into blast and nailing him point blank –much as you stated a few moments later. Weird. That or I pulled a Math Post there “Three Posts AHEAD”
Seriously though, I have no idea what your comment means. Maybe I’m reading it wrong. All said was I wish that, since her hand is literally a few inches from his face, I wish she could just quickly shift from full armor to full plasma and blast his head off since it’s at such close range and no way to miss. Firing upwards so no way for it to hit anyone else also. And sure, she’ll probably get electrocuted and hurt during it for the few seconds that Vehemence’s headless and most of torso-less body stumbles around, but with any luck, she’ll survive – either her base armor being enough to survive the few seconds, or if she is severely injured, enough time to get the doctor to her, or her to the doctor, who has healing powers. I don’t understand what you mean by ‘go limp’ – or why she’d have to trick him into leaning in when he’s ALREADY leaning in – it’s not like she fires her plasma bolts from her mouth. It’s from her hands which is again right next to his head.
And again, I know it won’t happen because DaveB doesnt want to kill V off, but it would be so nice if that did happen, and completely logical and consistent with everything that’s happened so far.
on your final point – we don’t actually know for certain that blowing his head off will kill him off, like it would one of us mere mortals…
Then before his twitching, headless and torsoless body regenerates, throw him into orbit. Not into the sun though, since the sun is full of violent plasma discharges.
The Demon worm that has been controlling him burst free from the open neck and tries to chew its way under Sydney’s skin. (who by that point probably has her shield down AGAIN!)
Actually it could happen, particularly if max can draw from speed, flight, and possibly strength in order to boost her damage output while still maintaining her current armor levels. Unfortunately I can’t seem to recall if DaveB said that she can can only draw from other stats to overdrive one stat or if she could split it between two…
I’m not bored. I’m enjoying this fight. (In comic book time it is not taking that long.) I’m curious to see the final denouement.
How bad is harem feeling about having spied for this guy before?
Er…. Harem didnt spy for Vehemence. I think I see your confusion though.
Harem spies for a man called Deus X. Machina.
Vehemence has deus ex machina powers.
Easy mistake to make.
I would like to see what people are lookin forward to in this comic. The whole discussion has been centered on V so long there’s little speculation about other characters and I think we could use some of that. Let’s try and keep V out of this discussion.
I for one am definitely looking forward to scenes related to Sydney developing a deeper understanding of her powers- I can see some good scenes upcoming with testing how the shield blocks things other than conventional attacks, with Harem’s teleportation a factor. I wonder if she can teleport out via de-manifesting the trapped body.
I’ll try to not mention he-who-shall-not-be-named for this particular convo.
I’d really like to see:
1) Study done on Sydney’s orbs and the theories that Zephon said he had about them, see those theories be proven wrong, and her orbs are like from some higher dimension which is why they don’t seem to be affected by, or seem to be able to be scanned in any way by, methods in this lower dimension.
2) Backstory on Dabbler and that ancient god thing.
3) More social interactions between Sydney and Maxima, Sydney and Anvil, Sydney and Leon, and Sydney and Mathias.
4) More stuff about getting anyone on the team to go to the comic book shop.
5) More stuff dealing with the hassles of celebrity for someone who is not very well equipped to handle it (ie, again, Sydney) – like on Oprah or something, or Harem on a Dr Ruth-like radio show.
Oh yeah, and interaction between Sydney and other recruits (since I recall someone saying that Sydney was NOT the only one).
Jiggawatt is one!
I totally did not remember that. But are there only two – Jiggawatt and Sydney – or are there more?
Maybe the two yet-unnamed guys from the beefcake splash panel? The black guy and the blonde guy.
I think those two are just ‘space marines’ type of Archon members, but who knows. Maybe?
Also oh my god I cannot wait to see Maxima on the Colbert Report. Or getting into a shouting match with Rush.
You’re thinking small if you want ‘shouting’ from Maxima.
Howard Stern.
No no no, honey… Limbaugh is radio. She’d be on O’Reilly Factor.
Yeah, I am looking forward to the power test montage/exposition myself. I also hope that when we get around to it DaveB also provides a desktop background with Sydney, her skill tree and hopefully a short description of the abilities granted by the known nodes. Much like the shot on page 181 entitled “power up” but bigger, higher detail and the descriptions. Actually that would be a pretty sweet voting incentive, especially becaDaveB would only have to update the descriptions for a new incentive. Thus creating as many as 100 virtually work free voting incentives (or possibly 105 if that septagonal thing in the very center is indeed partly filled). And for the record, yes I went back and counted all the available nodes (subtracting one for the actual number because of the level up.
Hey DaveB, oh creator of this awesome webcomic, did you catch that? Lots of (almost) free vote incentive material here for you. While I am still (mostly) on topic I should also mention that an alternate and decidedly non-canon NSFW ending to this fight (like you mentioned a few pages ago) would make for an excellent optional bonus for a print book or collectors edition volume. Optional because it would by its very nature be NSFW and this inappropriate for some households and situations. Of course you might be able to get away with a really big and obvious splash page about how “The following content is Not Safe For Work and is intended for Mature readers” but on the other hand it would probably be better to not take the legal risk and include it as a separate mini book/issue. As a bonus/collectors edition inclusion it could be a few years down the line, thus lending itself well to being worked on a little bit at a time when you have time and feel so inclined. Seriously, going with either (or preferably both) of these options would be awesome. Thanks for your work Dave we love you! (otherwise we wouldn’t be here)
It would also be nice to see what that orphaned node she put her point into does.
you guys are forgetting a major detail. WE ARE STILL ONLY ON DAY 1. I mean its been a 4 year long day. If you dont like how long its taking go elsewhere, otherwise stfu
Man right after I try to foster some nice discussion you go insult everyone who’s frustrated and tell them to leave.
quit trollin’.
What orbs are halo holding? Force field is the one, is the other one truesight or one of the unknown ones?
Well it’s not the PPO, the truesight, the fly, or one of the unknown ones since those ones are visibly floating over her head. So either the lighthook or the other unknown, and it makes more sense that she’d be holding the lighthook, since there’s no good reason for her to be holding one of the unknowns.
The other one is probably the truesight/illusion one so that she can place another of herselves on the other side of the battle field and yell at them in stereo. Its probably about the best chance she has of being heard without a megaphone or something.
It’s definitely not the truesight one – you can clearly see that the floating middle ball over her head is yellow, which is the color of the truesight orb.
Its the bright greenish one being lit up by a nearby explosion from another angle. Yeah see… Well, since when was Dave good with details anyway. :-P *runs away*
Well… the yellow and blue orbs are definitely apparent though.
Another idea. Sydney uses her lighthook on Vehemence in overdrive, she keeps wrapping it round V over and over and over and over and over again until it’s basically one huge ball of lighthook, like a rubber band ball around him, and hopefully at that point she’d be able to fly up and get him off the ground (and off Maxima) if the lighthook is beween his foot and the ground (or destroys the ground that he was on where the glyph is). Then once off the ground, Maxima helps in finally throwing him into orbit.
You know Opal could probably defuse the situation here if her power kicks in where she was knocked out (if magic based her spell might stilt be waiting for her activation command). Considering she wakes up in the middle of a free-for-all of blasts she might just want to kick the Skidaddle spell off as is. Her gates were pretargeted already and very few of those arising are charging off their standing positions (okay maybe Heavenly Sword and Jabberwock) fast enough to miss their gate opening. Enough of his capacitor/generator(s) leaving the field could drop V back into smack-able range again. He is a pretty short range Vehempath after all –he had to really walk into the middle of things to get all glow and shit. Everything before that was like cheese cubes before the main course, tasty but not filling.