Grrl Power #283 – Tectonic uppercut
Things continuing to go badly for Vehemence. We get to see Maxima really max out an attribute here, making her temporarily stronger than V even with all his built up power. It’s a testament to how tough he is that his head didn’t just pop right off. This is really quite risky to do in proximity to him, since it leaves her… probably still tougher than a human, but downright mushy relative to his strength. Still she’s got that ‘super strength toughness’ at the moment like you see in comics, where she’s not particularly bulletproof, but still somehow doesn’t rip all the skin off her hand when punching him hard enough to cause a localized tectonic upheaval.
I would have liked to have made this page a double, but the way things laid out, the next page worked better as a double. We’re so close to the end of the fight. I just put the finishing touches on the final page of it last night. Hope I remember how to do the slice of life stuff again. :)
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+1
Yeah he’s officially taking more DPM than he can tank.
…Armor breaches are never good news…
HULL BREACH! HULL BREACH! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!
Worse when something is there to prevent the breech from being sealed, which is exactly what Sydney is doing.
Kind of like if Sabertooth had a hole blown into his sternum and someone shoved a pole into the hole to prevent it from healing until it was removed…
Life support system is compromised! Repeat! Life support is compromised! Emergency air supply contingencies are NOT deployed!
Oh my god I love this page so much.
massive hull breach?
yah I survived but had to jettison my self-respect
(possibly misquoted) dilbert
What breach? It looks like he’s got a bruise on his neck to me, not a big hole in it.
Looks to me like she caved in his adam’s apple.
Like Bruce Willis’s character does to Richard Dreyfuss’s character in Red.
So all we need now is the John Malkovich character to shoot him in the head three times.
Love that movie.
*Gasp* Does that mean I get to bring the bear?
The PIG, dude.
BACON!
Well-Done, DaveB!
Most writers of fight scenes don’t seem to realize just how easy it is to bruise the Adam’s-Apple region. Bruised tissue will swell, so the victim’s own auto-response to damage effectively clamps the throat shut & suffocates them.
It occurred to me Max while is the heavy machinery of the operation, Sydney brings the lock pick tools. She can get up close and personal to a situation without being harmed, and use her other orbs to be quite meddlesome with the important details. It’s really cool to see how well they can together work as a team. At least when everyone actually has to listen to Sydney. And when she is actually focusing on something, productively. :)
+1 , and another for your avatar and nick :). Talk about grrl power, Susie Derkins had it.
And Sydney uses the light hook to block Vehemenence’s regeneration of his throat, denying him air and creating an opening for Anvil to lay him out.
Get Max to punch his throat in as a preparation for choking him out. I did not expect Sydney to come up with a rather non-violent takedown. (Well, at east as non-violent as it gets, considering that Max’ punch was strong enough for Vehemence to start regenerating.)
Remaining tasks:
– Hold long enough for him to pass out.
– Figure out how to get his powerlevel back down to ‘manageable’.
– Not kill V because
alleged recurring villaingood guys, duh.“– Not kill V because alleged recurring villain good guys, duh.”
Except Maxima has tried to kill him multiple times including beating to death, crushing, and decapitation.
I was referring to him getting unconcious from a lack of oxygen, which would be a perfect opportunity to get rid of him forever, but won’t happen because it is not what the good guys do.
How is getting punched in the throat and choked considered non violent?
Standard police procedure.
Witch is always violent.
It wasn’t non-violent. He got goooood charge from it indeed. Hopefully he will panic and dump his power into creating oxygen or life force instead of taking a sec and blasting everyone off (spin-attack, death blossom, massive spikey expansion followed by quick shrinkage), teleporting or whatever bizarre thing he can do with his massive power pool.
Or they could just stop screwing around and kill him of course…. naaaah! XP *sigh* LOL (this page has my emotions flip flopping a bit)
I said “rather non-violent”. Which I consider to be appropriate, considering other stuff which has happened in this fight. Especially since the only effective way of taking him out seemed to be blowing his head off.
What if Maxim just stuck something long and pointy into parts of his brain and stirred them up a bit? Maybe he would regen with no memories and an improved mind that being new and improved would think of immoral stuff like this?
A Sleeper Hold/Choke Out makes more sense than what my first thought was when I saw that noose. I thought we were about to get very very dark very fast.
So I am loving this page; good planning, good communication, good teamwork. I love competent protagonists. One of the subtle things I like is Max instantly trusting Sydney’s directions. From “Scoville, you don’t direct combat ops.” to “Neck punch? You got it.” Max is coming away with a healthy respect for Sydney’s tactical abilities, and we can see the progression throughout the fight. I predict this is how she makes corporal.
Also, now we know what it looks like when Maxima Ubers a stat. Wow. I’m amazed she didn’t take V’s head clean off, or at least stand him up straight. A testament to his own current power level I suppose. She also should be free and out by now. Both V’s hands are going to his neck, both feet are on the ground, and she should have enough strength to get out of any pinch between his legs. I think I remember Dave saying that bringing one stat to its uber level leaves Maxima exhausted. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.
Up next, what is the breaking strength of the lighthook? A noose seems to be able to choke even a very op V. Will a lack of oxygen prove to be V’s one true weakness? Will it block the healing thing leaving a wound or a scar? Thursday seems so very far in the future…
I don’t think she trusts them so much as she doesn’t have much choice other than going along with them. It’s not that Sydney is suddenly tactically smarter than Max, it’s that she is actively doing something at the moment. Doing something other than what she suggests is super counterproductive even if it’s the dumbest plan ever.
The sergeant with a plan outranks a lieutenant who has no idea what’s going on.
I’d also sugest that with events that have happened earlier (Such as with Death Toll) there’s probably a bit of “…Well her ideas have worked reasonably well so far, and I can’t think of anything better”
After all, most of them DIDN’T listen to Sydney with Death Toll, perhaps her sucess with him is in the back of Max’s mind in not questioning the rookie’s plan here.
It’s always better to follow the person with a plan to save your ass, than to go directly against that plan.
Except when you think that person is a dumbass offcourse.
The ‘you don’t direct combat ops’, was because Sydney was ‘directing’ Maxima while she did have a plan
And an demoliton expert on a dead run outranks everyone^^
But that’s only because the bomb outranks everybody, including the bomb technician.
Ahhhh, nothing like a dose of negligent regicide to spice up the morning….
Also, she’s really pissed. I’m sure a punch to the throat seemed like a great idea regardless of the circumstances.
The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries.
Number 2: A Sergeant in motion outranks a Lieutenant who doesn’t know what’s going on.
Number 1 being: Pillage, then burn.
Lack of oxygen, my one weakness. How did you know? (Sorry but that is the first thing I thought of when I read your post.)
as far as we know, her orbs have no definite limitation, aside from usefulness.
i mean, maxima tried to punch through the force field with no effect.
so far, we have only seen what PEW PEW ORB is capable of, and yet we don’t know if it wouldn’t be EVEN MORE POWERFUL if she willed it to be.
this page:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1219
suggests it can..
Maxima didn’t actually TRY to punch through the forcefield though.
This fight has shown us what happends when she REALLY trys to punch through something. There were no such shockwaves in the ballroom.
Although WE do know from the castpage that her forcefield is the strongest of her powers, and a 5 star, which is the top of the scale in this universe
If I remember correctly, her shield wasn’t originally 5 stars. It got promoted to that after testing. I think all her orbs can get to 5 star status with training.
Or the appropriate amount of points on the skill tree: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1167.
I find myself thinking that perhaps the Shield-Orb works in a similar fashion to Anvil’s power. Rather than blocking your might with it’s might, it could ABSORB the might of others & use it to block penetration. If this is so, then I predict that there will be no upper-limit on this Orb’s power. Whether it’s a super’s fist or a bomb’s shock-wave, the attacking force isn’t really fighting a shield – it’s fighting a literal reflection of itself. Picture, for example, the girl who played the goalie-position in the finale of the film, “Shaolin Soccer”.
energy (light, sound) below “the cap” can go through the shield, but leaning against it you will not fall. can you updeate your explanation with that in mind?
Maybe my choice of words could be better.
Perhaps the proper word here is not “attack” but “penetration”,
as in “if it’s harmless, it’s allowed through”…?
My previous film-reference was not the best, because the girl in the film did NOT block, but instead re-directed the approaching ball back at her opponent.
As a (hopefully better) visual example, consider:
There are any number of online videos of house-cats “playing patty-cake”, I.E. each reaches out with a fore-paw to the other, & the 2 paws parry each other. The effect resembles 2 actors doing “the Mirror”, an old pantomime schtick that dates back to early vaudeville.
Perhaps an atom’s mass might be greater than a photon’s mass by a margin that exceeds “the cap”…?
In any case, if the countering force is being precisely fueled by the attacking force (& with zero lag in response), then that force would decrease as pressure was removed, so that there would never be any “knock-back” effect. You’d always employ EXACTLY the effort needed, & never anything more-or-less.
Of course, this is all speculation.
The final arbitrator is the Author, as always.
Actually top of the scale is 6 stars though that may be somewhat of an exception! (see Achilles’s defense rating)
To all those (many) people who were saying ‘put him in the shield until his air runs out.’ it looks like we owe you a partial apology. It appears you were on the right track, just with the wrong orb.
They said “put him in the shield until his air runs out”, it’s actually more “put him in the shield, then noose him.”
He is not in the shield. This isn’t quite clear from the last 4 panels but it is quite clear from the large panel immediately before (be 4?) those four.
Also, we know that Sydney hasn’t yet learned how to materialize the hentacle inside her force field.
Geeze, these pages are like frickin’ superhero comic PLATINUM. Just, works of art.
Yeah, DaveB is one of the best artists in webcomics.
The only way have could get better is if he studied how the Korreans draw their Manwa.
If you have ever read Orange Marmelaid, or Song on a Cloud, you would understand what I’m talking about.
Or, conversely, we would understand what you were talking about if you respected your correspondents enough to check your syntax and spelling before you posted.
Oh, sure. Take all the fun out of it. =OP
After this fight we will see another upgrade for Sydney, and I vote for double lighthook or putting shield around someone else (so they can take v to prison safely, if he survives)
Considering the relatively little she did prior to her first upgrade, it would make sense to get an upgrade or two, if she is starting at level 1. The fact that the tree was already pretty filled out makes me wonder if she really was at level 1 though. What if the orbs retain their level between owners? She picks them up they are relatively close to the next level up, which is why we saw it earlier, but it might take a lot more to get to the next level.
Keep in mind that Sydney has had the orbs for months already, during which she learned what five were capable of, if perhaps not the full extent of their powers. That training probably contributed quite a bit to her leveling up, which just happened to occur when she blew up the tank.
Plus the light hook is probably the orb that she played with the most.
It is the most useful around the house, which is where she used the orbs most often.
The story line has implied that she did some initial experimentation, enough to start a forest fire with the PPO and to figure out the capabilities of 5 of the 7 orbs. But then she pretty much ignored them out of fear of the government vivisection teams and being whisked off to some lab where she’d never emerge. The orbs are definitely whisk worthy, and she can’t move far from them, so she’d be whisked as well.
Or is it the case that the orbs start with a default set of basic abilities (represented by filled nodes) for lvl 1, similar to starting feats or skill points in D&D/Pathfinder.
If they’re similar to a multi-tool set that she found laying about without any references or guide, she doesn’t know how to adjust any prior settings that carried over from a prior user/owner.
At least it was a punch to the throat rather than, say, the groin.
Both are pretty unpleasant though. Anyway, I wouldn’t rule out groin shots just yet! It would be a hilarious finisher!
Groin shots are not hilarious.
Someone please think of the children!
Especially the unborn ones!
Nothing like a pre-conception abortion to control population…
I don’t care who you are, that’s funny! LtCG
We’ve already had “Apollo 13”, maybe this would be the “Bunker Buster” 8-)
Did she jam something into his throat or is that just his healing ability at work?
The sparkles? That’s his healing ability. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1554
And now it makes sense. Panel 2 is Sydney motioning for Max to punch his throat. Couldn’t figure out a) what Sydney was doing with her arm in that panel and b) how Max knew to punch his throat.
2 problems, 1 answer.
i just love max’s informative power pentagon (and the shoryuken uppercut). just waiting for the day when one of the points explodes because Max overmaxxed an ability.then the next time it’s shown there’s a little bandaid over the broken point :)
I do too!
Dave…Someday, you just gotta make that happen…You just gotta!
GAH! A throat punch is one of the most effective and deadly hand-to-hand manuevers. And the Molestorb continues to earn its name with the follow up.
Don’t see why you would repave the parking lot when you are well on your way to a new swimming pool, or underground parking ramp, etc…
“Fist Across Throat Means Choke!
Metaphor.”
percussive chokehold…
In this case more like ‘premeditated self-defense.’
“…Still she’s got that ‘super strength toughness’ at the moment like you see in comics, where she’s not particularly bulletproof, but still somehow doesn’t rip all the skin off her hand when…”
Did he just admit plot armor?!
Aside from her surviving this move, i wonder how was she actually able to do this.
Sure, she has maxed out strength, but i don’t think that alone would be enough to punch a hole through Him. with someone as though as him, i think he should bend backwards instead of getting a wound.
if “strength” is enough to break the ground, how is it not shaking every time she takes a step? oh right… she fly, no steps involved.
I think this may actually something else than a pure strength. At the very least, not pure.
That’s not plot armor, plot armor only works when it’s needed, aka it’s stripped away the moment it isn’t.
This is a consistent feature of Max’s super power.
It’s not a hole, it’s a crushed throat. And the ground is suffering the reverse of the shockwave you have in mind, V’s power is anchoring him to the ground, so he can’t go flying backwards without bringing the ground up with him, so he doesn’t go very ‘up’.
I don’t mean any disrespect, but when i read this comment i can’t think anything else than “what the F**** is he talking about?” (or she? cant ever be sure on the internet.)
yeah, the “hole” was a bit exaggerated, but what have i ever said about a “shock wave”?
I AM aware of the anchor, but the ground breaking in this page, is not even what i am talking about.
what i said, is that without the speed, she shouldn’t be able to hurt him with a punch, no matter how strong she is.
Place your hand in a vice grip. It is slow, so it can’t hurt you, right? This is the same principle in a different direction – V made it so that he and the ground couldn’t be separated except by exceptional force. Maxima is doing the equivalent of putting a crowbar between V and the ground and exerting force, except she’s the crowbar and she can exert incredible force.
There is also the fact you need to consider where she’s aiming. Throats are exactly the toughest part of the body. Plus…you hit with more force if you’re not aiming at where you’re hitting but are actually aiming for somewhere behind where you’re aiming. I could imagine Maxima aiming for somewhere well behind V’s throat.
Um… where do you get the info that the throat is the toughest part of the body? It is in fact one of the weakest. It takes around 33 pounds of pressure to crush the trachea. Where as the chest can take anywhere from 500 to 5000 depending on age and health. The femur I believe being stronger then that. There’s a reason in many fighting styles why the focus on the throat. Because it is one of the weakest parts and can very easy take out your foe.
I believe he meant arn’t.
I do hope so… that would explain a lot. And make me feel a little like an idiot. :)
Yeah. I meant aren’t. My fault for trying to type my comment while distracted by the injured people ’round here.
I’m guessing that was a typo and was meant to read “throats AREN’T exactly the toughest part of the body.”
No typo.
The throat is the toughest part of the body.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoIcUUnpdec
After reading this, I did an experiment and went outside and punched the throats of the first ten people I saw. I can confirm that you are incorrect, sir, and punching people in the throat is a pretty effective way for them to go down fast.
Btw can anyone give me the name of a good attorney?
I think that this video proves otherwise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a86cQobU-n4
I’ll let you know with my next experiment of punching 10 Shao Lin monks in the throat next. Soon as I beat this bogus assault and battery rap.
No problem. Just declare yourself a “Free(wo)man of the Land” and they can’t lay a finger on you.
I’m kidding. No, really, this never works.
Make sure they’re genuine shao lin monks, and not the boring punchable monks. You’ll draw more conclusive evidence.
Gotcha. So no punching friars, cenobites, hermits, anchorites, or hesychasts in the throat.
You could also try a Bulletproof Monk.
As long as they’re the awesome ones. =3
You do have a point. The equation is force x velocity, Max certainly has more than enough force but not enough velocity. Like how the one inch punch doesn’t really work all that well.
To be fair to Adam neither the word speed or any thing that obviously means speed was in your original post. Certainly not attached to Maxima anyway. Perhaps what you meant by “I think he should bend backwards instead of get a wound” was referring to Vehemence’s speed allowing him to dodge?
Without a clear mention of speed everyone took that to mean that you thought Vehemence should be bent backwards by the force of Maxima’s fist which most of them decided meant you didn’t understand how the anchor was holding him in the path of her fist. (which is also silly since it would just prevent him leaving the ground not rearing back so had you been asking that it would have been a good point actually. But you weren’t asking that apparently.)
Anyway so I agree that Maxima having speed and strength as separate things is going to be confusing for a good long while. There are apparently lots of situations where a fist traveling at super speeds seems like it would do more damage then the slower but unstoppable fist of strength (unless your back was to a wall and then I guess her strength would allow her to just slowly thrust right on through you). There’s no particular support for it, or anything against it either, but maybe Maxima grabbed his other weaker arm so as to hold his upper body in the path of her unstoppable fist of strength for a second before releasing it. (cause he can be seen with his head and neck flying back a bit afterwards)
Some say speed should equal reaction time and strength should be necessary to turn that reaction time into actual super speedy movement.
Right now we are stuck with accepting that if she maxes out strength she gets to punch for a ton of damage even against super defenses even though realistically it would just push him out of the way (even with his anchor he should be able to move back and away from the punch and in fact did so in a later panel). I don’t think Dave would be able to retcon it at this point even if we knew what to safely replace it with.
________________________
Neither strength nor speed would break/shake the ground from her just walking though unless she weighed a lot more than I think she does. The ground was lifted upwards because her punch carried V upwards but he couldn’t go upwards (he possibly could by bending back and away but we are pretending he couldn’t cause of the anchor and his own constricted super muscles I guess? pretend with us! LOL ) so the ground he was anchored to did instead. And yes that also seems just as much a function of speed as strength. All her powers come from the same source , telekinetic force, so maybe she is imparting telekinetic force to his throat by touch and somehow this overlaps functionally with just speeding up her fist and launching at his throat at the speed of a bullet or faster?
You got a point, if I understand you correctly but its not nearly as annoying to me as Ka-Pants Every Power Man and fits in with every super powered strong man/woman I’ve ever seen so its pretty easy to ignore really.
You definitely live up to your assumed name.
Your observation and analysis skills and incredible.
I can understand breaking the ground with strength alone, because it is a solid object that cannot be “moved”. so ofc if you pressure enough it will break apart.
but human body is only half solid. it is not quite plastic but (except for bones) rather flexible.
kinetic force just spread way too fast for him to be injured with that speed, or so i believe.
as for you getting annoyed, well. All counter without being technically all counter, is not exactly the same as “how does that work”
For someone who researched the behavior of darkning, to go with something like this…
Young bones can be pretty flexible too. But the throat is one of the weakest parts of the body on a human. Every serious save your own ass survival defense course includes a good strike to the throat being mentioned. Just a light tap to my throat is uncomfortable and the same force I use to knock on a door becomes painful. That bunch of crunchy cartilage inside the throat seems fairly delicate on humans to me. His super defense combined with super speed may have allowed him to mitigate some of the damage by leaning back and standing up with the punch a bit (instead of apparently holding himself against it) but any damage that managed to connect was going to be brutal on that delicate part of the anatomy.
As for the other. V gets tons of energy “muscle” suddenly. The first time he’s been this far apparently. And just like that he can magic (or will up or whatever) up whatever effect he can imagine without training, without experience, no self exploration of his new power or anything. He doesn’t goof up even once. He just pushes power into a wish and poof: Perfect result on the first try. Yeah… “how does that work”? I hand you a sword and suddenly you’re a sword fighter? No bashing me over the head or poking me with it randomly phase just instant swashbuckler? Ooookaaay. (I’ve talked about this so much I’m kind of surprised I’m not getting called out for too many posts in this direction really… )
uhm.. it was HIS first time achieving this power lvl, but he might have had a teacher, or a book.
also some powers comes with talent. while it makes sens for a normal person to have trouble handling a normal weapon, we are dealing with super powers.
lets just agree to disagree on that one and finally end the topic of V having too many powers. we just consider different things to be acceptable or not.
and i wouldn’t even mention this punch in the first place, if DaveB didn’t said he checked the behavior or darkning. saying something like that is sort of like signing a contract. except there was no papers to sign on. You do something once, people ere gonna expect more from you.
I can see you’re not interested so sure. I will leave you with the quick comment: I don’t mind the number of powers V has (its more about “how does that work?” ;) ) and in fact believe arch super villains SHOULD be allowed to be overpowered with planning. Its really the whole point of their existence to try and achieve moments like that. So I’m cool with those aspects of Vehemence.
I don’t think you are wrong to question the nature of the punch at all. Its a big part of the fun of this whole comment section thing and Dave usually grows stronger from it even if he doesn’t agree with you. Figuring out why he thinks you’re wrong probably is just as helpful to his world building as agreeing with you. (and he often does agree with commentors a bit though sometimes things have reached a point where he can’t do anything about it now)
Believe me. For me this was an incredibly short comment. XD
“Believe me. For me this was an incredibly short comment.”
it is short, compared to one above…
unless you meant the one above the above, in which case i cant believe.
The ‘strength’ thing you mentioned. That’s not her strength doing it, that’s the shockwave from her punch, and it’s also possible that a section of the pavement is breaking off from the parking lot, since V anchored himself to it before the punch.
As one strip in ‘Dabbler’s Science Corner‘ put it, Maxima’s strength etc. is telekinesis-based. By definition, it is not pure strength (meaning muscle strength).
well, i believe all “super strength” powers are to some extend tk, or otherwise supernatural. otherwise they wouldn’t be called “powers”. but the difference here, the “zero range telekinezis” actually extends outside of her body.
thinking about it, why punch at all? why not just poke his throat and let the “ZRTK” make her hand sink into his throat, tearing apart molecular bonding and using alternative TK version of anchor to keep him immobilized?
Because her power doesnt work that way, apparently. It might involve body language being an integral part of her zero range TK, like Superman or Supergirl’s biomatrix
Its this whole “required” secondary super power trope where your main power logically needs a secondary power in order to be used at all so most comic’s heroes are assumed to have them. Though it makes less sense with Max’s pool then most other supers. She actually has the required secondary power as a “main” known power but CHOSE to shift juice away from it to power THIS power so she has less excuse to have the secondary power than anybody else. Its a little off really.
We know she moved power into Strength by bringing Toughness (and Flight, and Speed, and Beam) below their usual baseline levels, but that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing left in Toughness. It just means that there’s no more in Toughness than is needed to withstand the punch itself. (There’s probably a bit of Speed active as well to boost the punch, and a bit of Flight to support the punch force, with Beam dialed right down to donate.
She overmaxed strength. Leeching away power from even the baseline of the other telekinetic abilities till the only reason she has anything left is cause she doesn’t not have a normal human body to begin with. Right above the comments Dave says, “Still she’s got that ‘super strength toughness’ at the moment like you see in comics, where she’s not particularly bulletproof, but still somehow doesn’t rip all the skin off her hand when punching him hard enough to cause a localized tectonic upheaval. This is sort of a reference to required secondary powers trope where supers have what they need to use their powers effectively. Which I feel rings a little off here because she already HAS the in comic established secondary powers necessary to defend against the use of her own powers but chose to drain them for this endeavor which should have serious consequences.
It doesn’t really bug me as much as it looks like it does with all the text need to explain it here though. I just thought I was commiserating with this fellow (OP) but it looks like he was going for something else entirely. (my bad)
To use another example, Cyclops has his optic beams (like a certain cape-wearing alien). If we try to throw science into that we might come up with having the retinas in his eyes acting in reverse and emitting high energy photons rather than absorbing photons. He does not have the Kryptonian level toughness needed to handle this type of ability, so the most likely outcome is him cooking his own eyeballs from the inside the first time the power was used.
My education is fairly low so unsurprisingly I don’t really expect much in the way of correct science from my fantasy stories. But if someone makes up rules and indicates a certain level of “realism” then my brain tries to go along with those rules at that setting for that story. This isn’t really about actual physics or what have you. This is about the rules set forth by the author not quite jiving with the level of realism, common sense or whatever you want to call it (not necessarily real world science unless the author indicates that) that I think he’s going for. (in a fantasy world where I assume power pools of super powers are a totally real and fine part of physics)
But actually that was just a small aside at the end of a comment on “required” secondary power trope made to the OP who was talking about something I thought was related. It just keeps snowballing by a few sentences every round as I try to explain my very minor nitpick about it. XD (bad habit on my part!) Sorry I caught you up in my Katamari Damacy ball of replies…
The word you want instead of realism is verisimilitude. As for a good reason for why her hand isn’t being destroyed, see the various comments about how her powers are Zero-Range TK, and thus would most likely protect her hand from her own strength, if you haven’t already.
Which is a word that some liken to realism as a synonym but somewhere else it is listed as “believability”. I like that, believability, however verisimilitude just seems like an ungainly mouthful.
So yeah, I’d seen it in passing but after a certain point I seem to spend more time keeping up with my own reply storms than reading new comments. I thought I had a bit of a handle on that but at your suggestion I went and read every one I could find using the word zero.
I think I was merely thinking of it as a field that could be reconfigured to perform multiple functions and the more you changed its form to fit a particular function the less it could perform the other functions. But hadn’t really given tons of thought as to how it created those effects.
What you are all saying is that what Maxima thinks of as the strength part of her powers is actually a field extended an invisibly tiny distance around her moving upwards and taking anything in its way with it, pushing it aside or pushing through it appearing for all the world like she actually is doing it with strength. She isn’t really touching him at all so the impact CAN’T hurt her cause her fist never impacted his throat: her field did. She needs no durability cause her body isn’t really in contact with him exactly. The ground under her doesn’t get pushed down for the same reason things and people under her when she flies don’t get pushed down. Her field apparently anchors in some other oddball way to its surroundings (maybe it latches onto an energy field like the earths magnetic field or some weird other dimensional thing). So her strength comes from her field intelligently shifting to push at anything she shoves, kicks or otherwise desires to move while touching it. Right now its automatic and she can ‘t do any power stunts with it.
So as long as she is trying to move something she doesn’t need durability to defend herself at the spot where her field connects with that thing. This would mean that if she put 3/4rths of her power over into speed and the last fourth into strength she could defend against most things as long as she saw them coming. She could just punch bullets out of the way or grab them out of the air (as we’ve seen). Same with mundane edged weapons. I wonder if she has any idea that when she is using speed and strength to grab a bullet out of the air that any energy she puts into durability is wasted as far as that bullet is concerned. Durability then is only for the attacks she can’t see coming or can’t move to defend against by grabbing/kicking/punching them away.
It would be great to see her learn this later on and take full advantage of it tactically instead of instinctively as we see here.
Well, it was a minor nitpick so I wasn’t putting my full time and efforts into thinking it through but I’m glad you convinced me to do so as these are some very fun thoughts.
Thank you.
Its WEIGHT that would make the ground shake with every step, not strength. Sheesh. In fact, without either anchoring of some sort or great weight (or magic/psuedomagic) or extreme speed its not possible to make the ground shake with strength- you just can transfer enough kinetic energy to it before you just lift yourself off the ground instead.
“…or extreme speed…” EXACTLY MY POINT
point that accordingly to observer i didn’t make…
and its difficult to disagree with 100 lines.
R, he doesnt ‘bend backwards’ because of his ‘magic I can’t be budged’ foot glyph power. Which means all the energy is directed right up into his throat, instead of punching him into orbit. Then Sydney uses the lighthook to block his airpipe from regenerating. And before he comes up with some way to counter that, apparently Anvil is going to do SOMETHING
only thing the anchor does, it make it difficult to separate him from the ground. in the same page maxima broke his thumb.
he can be moved, just not his fits, unless as shown you move the ground with them.
and i have said absolutely nothing about followup, i don’t need an argument “its not over yet”.
…I have no idea what you’re asking about, R. Your first post seemed to indicate you were wondering why V wasn’t sent flying or the like. But that’s not what you’re asking, apparently. If you’re asking why his spine didn’t break and bend him in half, he’s really, really damned tough right now. And possibly high-mass, not sure. If you’re why he didn’t fall down, that’s the anchor, which is transfering some of the kinetic energy to the ground, hence why it’s being lifted up and breaking off, and why the shockwave went through the ground. And yes, it is possible to make the ground shake with enough force. See also: explosions.
thats… go read observers 100 lines.
I find it so amusing that you defend all the stuff that protects Vehemence (some of which was much more arguably ‘plot armor’), but claim what Maxima is doing is plot armor, when it’s simply a ‘secondary required power’ – which pretty much ALL superheroes have. Sort of how Cyclops has secondary powers of superhuman aiming ability plus eyelids which are invulnerable to his optic blasts, or how Banshee or Black Canary have a secondary power of immunity from their own sonic attacks so they don’t go deaf every time they use their powers. Or human torch being invulnerable to fire so that he doesnt burn himself up when he ‘Flame On’s’
i am not claiming plot armor, its just that one sentence, that DaveB wrote below the page.
as for multi powers, lets look at jigawwatt:
-call lighning
-turn lighning
-immune to lighning
-call darkning
do you call that 4 powers? or one power.
i am not saying She should be damaged from this , it was just something i noticed.
What didn’t seem right… observer already wrote like 100 lines on that. go read him.
That’s all ONE power – electrokinesis. Used four different ways.
Sort of like how Magneto can both levitate, make force fields, and telekinetically move metal objects. It’s all magnokinesis.
Or like how the Human Torch can do multiple types of flames – thermite, nova blast, normal fire.
Or actually it’s more like 3 powers with a secondary mandatory power to make the first power, electrokinesis, actually make sense to have (immunity to lightning)
how is “turn xxx” default part of kinesis?
and if darkning is a part of the kinezis set too, why does the torch not shoot ice beams?
btw, its YOU who brought the human torch into this, want to compare something, make sure its comparable.
speaking of which, why does human torch has to be on fire when he fly?
dues he uses fire to lift himself? if so, have you seen him using fire to lift something else?
i believe it is not “a mandatory secondary power” but rather a consequence of the nature of their powers. like, human torch doesn’t burn down himself when he is on fire, cause he is made out of fire (or so i believe).
“obviously”, then what keeps him on? well, all powers can be explained to some lvl… but then you come to stuff like “conservation of energy” and other laws being broken.
i am sure observer would explain it better. agree or disagree, it would at least be to long and too precise for anyone to bother answering.
The sort of tail spin of misunderstandings you and Pander are caught in is probably why my comments evolved into the extremely long and over thought things no one reads now. ;D (Every comment I do under 5 paragraphs often leads to replies based on misunderstandings of my points and every one over that rarely gets much for replies and I don’t think many reads either… TT )
sydney really seems to have found a “hole in the wall” there
GO ADD POWAAAAAH hehe
That does remind me, I wanted to ask—if Maxima dumps too much into Strength and not enough into Armor, could she end up ripping her own skin by flexing too hard, or similarly self-injuring?
Please refer to DaveB’s comic accompanying text above the comment section for more but basically up there he says, “Still she’s got that ‘super strength toughness’ at the moment like you see in comics, where she’s not particularly bulletproof, but still somehow doesn’t rip all the skin off her hand when punching him hard enough to cause a localized tectonic upheaval.” Its a reference to a certain trope.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RequiredSecondaryPowers
If I have sent you into an endless tail spin of trope reading. Sorry for that. heh
“If I have sent you into an endless tail spin of trope reading. Sorry for that. heh”
Yes…I’ll just bet you are. heh
;)
[this user is unable to comment due to being lost in TV Tropes]
Shall we look forward to seeing your face gracing the sides of milk cartons soon?
Well, I can’t reply, naturally. That would ruin the joke.
Bugger…
Huh? Thought I heard something there for a moment.
*Looks at footprints leading into Tropeville* I think we can track them.
@Adamas:
Before you go, though, be sure to leave a thread trailing behind you, so you’ll be able to find your way back again to freedom.
(holds up a dozen strings) Like these guys?
*shifts his Bandoleer of Rescue Flares* If I’m not out in 72 hours, send Dabbler in to Rescue me.
watches xurials spell flare arc high over tropeville “to late she wandered in and can’t get out herself”
Panel five, the big center one shows Sydney off to V’s left by quite a distance extending the lighthook to V’s neck. I do like how her shield protected her from the shockwaves and left a neat little circle of pavement that’s lower than the surrounding area. But then in the last panel she’s right behind him. Practically on her shield with him leaning backwards. She was off balance to his left. Didn’t think she could move that quick without flying, which she couldn’t do with the shield and lighthook orbs in hand already.
Great page though. Syd is showing quite the resolve having only become a super hero mere hours ago. Yeah she’s had the orbs for a while, but supposedly all she’s done is fly around her apartment and play around with the other ones to find out what they do. She’s never had to use them in anger.
Totally unrelated side thought: I wonder what kind of range of power the PPO has. Like, can it be as weak as a laser pointer and even stronger than the blast she used on the tank? Wonder if she could use it to heat things instead of cutting through them.
Yes, because every owner of firearms knows that a handgun makes an excellent pointing aid….
The MOMENT Sydney decides to use her PPO as a laser pointer is the MOMENT someone needs to slap her upside the head. Don’t. Period.
It would definitely get people to look!
It would be the equivalent of a laser sight on a gun being a warning to bad guys.
If the laser sight itself was potentially extremely lethal.
I Just envision Sydney playing around in briefings/debriefings or training things with a laser pointer. Maybe pointing at something on a screen, getting spooked, then suddenly going to a higher power and burning a hole in the wall or something. Didn’t say it would be a good idea, just curious as to how variable the power was.
Those who wanted to see V get deep throated, there you have it. Of course, Max is doing it wrong. :p
Oh I’m pretty sure she’s doing it totally right. :)
The fist part of fisting anyways. :p
There’s nothing particularly wrong with this. She could have died or been maimed at a few points but we can assume V’s arrogance at his new power level made him cocky enough to observe and think when he should have been acting. Ironically many of the things he is doing wrong here vaguely resemble what ARC did wrong against him previously.
He criticized Anvil for fighting a certain way because of her powers which revealed them. He also has a certain way of fighting based on his powers. He likes to keep everyone alive for as long as possible and spends time thinking up new ways to keep them fighting safely (safely not killing him anyway) so he can get more power. As smart as he thinks he is if you keep not finishing people off or just leaving after kicking their arse they MAY eventually figure out a way or see an opportunity to screw you over. He basically did this to himself really.
Max did some “grandstanding” by locking herself in place and ramping up the armor to spook V and this made sure every iota of V’s then power level went into her widdle nose. Breaking it. V locked himself to the ground cause for some bizarre reason he can’t fly despite being able to make up powers so he’s afraid of being lifted. This lead to a ton of force being focused on his throat and with much less lost to him flying away from the ultra-punchie.
ARC talked to V a lot and gave him too many chances to, well, LIVE basically when he had shown growing signs of danger. Vehemence returned the favor. The gentleman brawler loves to hear the sound of his own triumphant voice at every opportunity.
Probably some more but I only have so much time to type here. ^_^’
I like that this is going to be a big team effort. I like seeing teams work together in concert. Thus proving there is a reason we have a team as opposed to just a bunch of supers with their police radios on so they can all show up at roughly the same time and start wailing on baddies only helping each other if it amuses them. I would have liked the strategy for one of the two larger traps/obstacles tonight to have been at least partially figured out by our experienced leader in this first fight (either Death Tolls or V. I’m not picky) just to establish character but other than that I am mostly enjoying this part of the ride.
Kind of surprised Vehemence doesn’t eventually think up KA-oxygen appearing in his lungs before he passes out. Or maybe that is the plan. The high drain of making up powers sucks his extra juice away?
I -love- the team effort thing. That Maxima is getting to do something badass, Jiggawatt is doing something badass. Dabbler is.. okay’s using a different part of her body admittedly…. But the point still is that it’s not just ‘Sydney saved the day all by herself while Maxima is helpless.’ Sydney is awesome and Maxima is awesome and I love this page sooo much.
The dark times are behind us and It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (Briiight) Sun-Shiny day. (even though its like night now… ;) )
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1189
now its time for “cleansing is at hand…”
or well, when the time comes it will be his time.
“cleansing”
Sounds like that would make everything shiny! (shiny squeaky clean souls)
I dislike when superheroes goesmfor the kill. But then Maxima is a supersoldier not a superhero…
As a soldier how much violence is she allowed anyway? There are rules even for military… especially for military. Is Vehemence a civilian? Is she bound to accept a surrender? Is her first duty (besides staying alive) to stop him, or protect civilians? Is Sydney still a civilian?
Btw can US-army order a soldier to commit suicide, like a 0% survivable mission?
When can/must a soldier refuse an order? (Not asked for debate just if anyone who knowsmthe rules, like an officer.)
A soldier, when attacked, is allowed to defend themselves. Think off all the real world fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The people attacking the US military aren’t part of a recognized government controlled military, they’re just civilians. However our military is allowed to defend themselves if they’re being attacked in a lethal manner. So even if V is a civilian, he’s attacking a federal military police force. No different than attacking regular police, or any other civilian for that matter. “If someone tries to kill you, you kill them right back”.
“If someone tries to kill you, you kill them right back”.
Not always so. If the soldier being attacked, ( any soldier in the world from a country signatory to the various International laws of combat, which the USA is ) is armed with an area affect weapon, and there are civilians in that area, it is a crime if he uses that weapon.
During the second world war, many nations, including the US, made assaults on areas where civilians were unable to leave the battlefield and did it without heavy weapons support, because it was unlawful to sow widespread murder among civilians. Both citizen-soldiers and their politicians were braver then of course.
Um, nope on the WWII “no murdering civvies”. We fire bombed Dresden killing over 20,000 civilians. We regularly bombed industrial targets, killing the workers inside. We were fighting to win. It’s only in modern day “Nation Building” that we apply all of the rules to attempt to sanitize war. War is horrible and is not made less horrible by only killing people who receive government paychecks.
You might be interested to know that the allied forces did what they could to minimize civilian casualties despite the fact that the natzies regularly fired unguided missiles into London with the sole purpose of demoralizing the British people. The Allied bombing of industrial targets was intended to reduce Germany’s ability to fight, of course it is difficult to hit a city block with unguided bombs from 20,000 feet.
As to the Dresden bombing, the raids are still debated as to their justification and military significance. What is certain is that there were over 100 factories in and around the city producing the German war effort including aircraft, artillery, and munitions, as well as various logistic sites (train yards, barracks ect.). Yes incendiary bombs were dropped, along with almost 4,000 tones of high explosives.
Did it happen? Yes. Where civilians killed? Unfortunately yes. Just try to think of it from the point of view of the people who made the decision at the time and the limits of their technology.
Not to mention both nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. I think nearly every casualty with those were civilians.
The atomic bombs dropped on Japan and Nagasaki were actually an attempt to end the war WITHOUT it being a war of attrition. The Japanese were going to lose by the time it was decided to use the atomic bombs, but they were making the United States pay for every barren rock they took, engaging in suicide kamikaze bombings, etc. It’s because of the japanese warrior mindset at the time – it was generally believed that they would literally fight and die to the last man and woman for the honor of the emperor.
The atomic bomb therefore served two purposes:
1) It gave the Hirohito an honorable way to surrender without losing face – basically surrendering to the gaijin because the foreign barbarians would engage in such massive casualties – by surrendering he looked noble to his people… doing so for their protection.
2) It shortened the duration of the war by months or even years, during which far more people would have died on both the American and Japanese sides than died in the two bombs
Also, they couldnt tell whether either bomb would work, and had to maintain radio silence, so one bomber did not know if the atomic bomb worked on Hiroshima, and the other plane did not know if the second bomb worked on Nagasaki. That’s why they used both remaining bombs (the third one was used to test whether the concept of an atomic bomb would work at all in the U.S. on military testing grounds.
Not to mention the Japanese tried ‘kill civilian’ on the United States against U.S. civilian populations. Fortunately, they didn’t understand the layout of the mainland of the United States and the attacks (9300 fire balloons) just caused 7 deaths (a pregnant woman and five children who were picnicking when one of the balloons exploded when they got too close to it).
Also, it was known that the Japanese had their OWN atomic weapons projects (including stuff they got from Nazi Germany before it went under). So, within the Allied leadership was probably a very real fear that Japan could use this technology if given enough time.
Plus, there were the biological weapons (refer: ‘Unit 731’) which had already been widely used in China, and for which there were plans for use against the rest of the Allies (refer: ‘Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night’).
One may question the morality of dropping the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But, taken against the lives that would have been lost on BOTH sides if the war continued, PLUS the millions of lives still in Japanese hands (Including thousands of Allied POWs who started being “disappeared” around then), the necessity of the bombings was absolute.
Lets end this thread with the fact that war is not pretty, not fun, brings out the worst in people, and should not be the subject of historically inaccurate games.
He has proven over and over that he is has no intention to surrender, and every intention, and capablilty, to kill her. And after that, to cause massive chaos. He’s a threat, and she’ll be fully justified at taking him out.
It’s also evident that there’s no way they are going to be able to take him out without killing him. Or atleast almost killing him
Hey, gonna try to answer your last question here. The U.S. army tries to operate on a standard of ‘Acceptable Loss’ meaning that every missions objectives are worth the projected cost in men, time, material and resources. Historically, yes, the army has ordered soldiers to undertake missions that had high projected mortality rates, but again, they want to make sure the results are worth the loss, and in quite a few of those missions asked for volunteers.
Personally speaking, as a Sergeant, (my highest rank) I would be exceptionally leery of any such mission, and anyone giving such a mission would have to justify it to higher authority. I can imagine scenarios that would make me participate in a suicide mission, but they are mostly apocalyptic.
As for your question about when a soldier can/must refuse an order, no one can order you to violate the law. As a military leader, I could not order a soldier to blow his own brains out, nor could I order him/her to murder civilians, do drugs, etc. The Nuremberg established internationally that ‘Just Following Orders’ is not an acceptable excuse for committing war crimes. Sorry for the long post, I am a bit of a history junkie.
Tl:dr version-Yes, they can, but they better be dang sure the objective is worth it, and a soldier can refuse to ovbey any order that violates U.S. law or international treaties.
Of course, if a military’s ordering you to commit war crimes, they’re probably not going to respect a soldier’s right to refuse.
True, and looking at history shows even after that, some soldiers still obey unlawful orders. He asked about what the regs say, and I answered them as best as I could. Having said that, had I been ordered to commit a war crime, I think I most likely would have been explaining myself to a court-martial after killing the superior who ordered it. That is me, though.
LOL, are we somehow from the same vat ?
In theoretical play, I earned a lot of WTF when I instantly shot a superior ordering me to shoot down hostages. I only asked him once if he was kidding and when he repeated the order… BLAM! It was only a sandtable exercise but they considered me too impulsive. Didn’t care; solved the situation with minimal loss; took a dump on their theoretics and didn’t want to join brass anyway.
lol. Nice. After I left active duty, I thought about going reserves/national guard, even to the point of getting into an ROTC programs. I had lots of fun messing with cadets, and proving that real world experience beats theory 80-90% of the time. I left after a MS-IV told me that his four years in college and two years of Drill in the guard gave him just as much experience as I had in 8 years active and multiple deployments (not the only reason. Blew out my knee while in service, that was just the icing on the cake) Last I heard, he washed out of the guard after screwing his aide.
Except now, as has been shown, if your government isn’t answerable to another or its own people, ‘war crimes’ are or are not whatever they want them to be.
Also an ex E-5, so yes, while on paper you can refuse an order you think is unlawful, it really has to jump the shark for you to do so without it ending your military service. The barracks lawyer fallback was to get the order in writing, noting your objection, then doing as ordered.
Well, I don’t have an answer for all of those questions (that haven’t already been answered by others), but here’s a couple:
“Is Sydney still a civilian?”
Sydney stopped being a civilian that moment she signed the contract back in Archon HQ.
“When can/must a soldier refuse an order?”
By the Oath of Office every soldier must take (It’s specifically required in Article 6 of the US Constitution), they are legally obligated “to obey all lawful orders issued from designated superiors.” Note the inclusion of the word “lawful” there–Ordering a soldier to commit to an action that’s 100% suicide is NOT lawful because suicide IS a crime. However, the military sorta circumnavigates this by asking for “volunteer”…
The most important lesson learned in my six years of military service: Never Volunteer For Anything!
Everytime someone told you lead, follow or get out of the way, did you get out of the way?
Idiocracy.:)
A very Nobby Nobbs-ish type attitude.
And one I can generally agree with.
Yes, Aldarad, it is part of our duty, as officers in the armed forces, to occasionally send good men to die. “D Day” during WWII is a prime example; but don’t think that the officers didn’t die in bunches. Often, we receive orders from our superiors to lead our men into similar situations. Further still, we are required, in certain situations, desertion in the middle of battle is the main one, to shoot and kill our own men. I recommend that you do a bit of reading on these subjects in order to understand the history and logic bhind such actions.
When V can get the moment to regenerate his throat…
… He will have the best singing voice ever.
+1
Only if Max follows with a kick to the nuts
Wouldn’t his Nutsack then hyper-evolve into Ballzack or something? Though a deep voice can be a great singing voice too.
I can’t get that visual out of my head now. GAH.
In my head they detached and he could fight with them like Pokemon.
Vehemence: Ballzack I choose YOU!
Sydney: I choose AsXXXore! (if you know this reference I don’t need to spell it right and if you don’t you probably don’t want to… )
V: O.O”
Then he would sing like this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8qu4OOQ_Dc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a86cQobU-n4
This is about as close to a superpowered nut shot that will ever be seen on earth. MMA fighter kicking a martial arts instructor in the nuts.
Then maybe with his thirst for violence but not chaos, he will become a vocalist for a metal band. I’d imagine bringing his own pyrotechnics in the form of lighting shooting off his arm would be a pretty big hit….
As long as there’s a mosh pit at every concert, Vehemence could save the money the auditorium would otherwise have to pay for powering up all of that equipment…
Can Mod remove the last segment, wrong forum and I cant edit.
Dave, I am constantly amazed. Not just at the quality of the strip and plot (which I am, of course) but it holds up to days of solid fan-scrutiny consistently.
… To say nothing of Dave himself holding up to constant fan scrutiny / criticism. :)
WOOT! SWITCHES TO ABSOLUTE FULL STRENGTH!
And WOOT TO SYDNEY TOO! AWESOME PAGE!!!!!!
AND SHE USES THE LIGHTHOOK BEFORE HE CAN REGENERATE HIS THROAT! WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Are we actually seeing what it looks like when you are happy about a scene centered around Vehemence?
Almost scary actually… O.O
But good to see all the same. I guess Dave came through on his promise for you. Good deal! :D
Yes. This is what I’m like when I’m happy about a scene centered around Vehemence, because he’s finally not able to pull powers out of wherever to counter what’s happening and Sydney’s not just doing it all by herself – she’s having ArcSwat work together to use their powers to their maximum potential to lay the smackdown finally after all these long months :):):)
SYDNEY IS AWESOME AND I AM SO HAPPY :) Yes, fear my happiness!!!!!!!
*happy dances with Pander*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM
That is the only example of me liking the original song better than Weird Al’s version.
That was brutal o_o
That was a throat punch. That was a throat punch. I haven’t seen a throat punch in… well, I don’t think you usually see a throat punch anywhere because it’s so brutal. Wow o_o
It’s weird how different cultures – even different regions within the same culture – have different standards for what constitutes an “acceptable” level of brutality to use in a fight.
When in college, I was a bouncer one summer at a very scary truck stop/roadhouse place called Clark’s, at which throat punches, kidney punches, armbreakers over the edges of tables, pool cues swung heavy-end-out to break ribs and teeth, etc, were completely ordinary fight tactics, and nut kicks were considered tame because any time someone did a nut kick it meant they’d passed up a chance to break someone’s knee. And then there were the guys with knives to worry about, although we spotted them pretty early. I’m still missing a few teeth that I lost there.
Clarks was an anomaly. The kind of savagery that went with bar fights there is not a normal feature of bar fights anywhere; it is more commonly associated with gang fights, and in that case proceeded from a couple of different motorcycle gangs competing with each other and local shitkickers for Clarks as “territory.” Occasionally truckers were drawn into (or baited into) the hostilities but the real trouble almost always started with the bikers and the shitkickers.
It was a cultural thing; that was just the way their culture had taught them hand-to-hand fights were carried out, and if a somebody managed to get killed there once every couple of years, as far as they were concerned it was just because he had been an idiot. In retrospect I was not being paid enough, but at the time I was happy because it was enough for tuition, books, and housing for a whole schoolyear in just three months.
In more civilized areas it doesn’t matter how mad people get or even how much they like fighting. They simply will not do nut kicks and throat punches for the most part, let alone deliberate bonebreakers. They don’t even think of doing it, because potentially lethal, maiming, or incredibly painful tactics are just not how their culture has taught them to do hand-to-hand combat.
Oddly enough, you get back to those completely savage tactics in two completely opposite circumstances. In those whose culture has not taught them hand to hand combat AT ALL and are fighting in a completely desperate and panicked way, and in those who have trained in hand-to-hand combat enough to know what lethal and maiming tactics are, when to use them, and when not to.
Wow, that’s actually really interesting. So, would you say the fellas engaging in battle at Clark’s are the sort whose culture haven’t taught them hand to hand combat, and are fighting in complete desperation, or are the one’s who are trained in how to and aren’t afraid to engage in such tactics.
I think he’s saying the guys at Clark’s were in the line of “That’s how they were taught”
The guys at Clarks were basically in an its-us-or-them war. The shitkickers and both of the biker gangs had absolutely no way to be at peace with each other. As long as any of them existed, the others were literally liable to lethal attack at any moment, inside or outside Clarks.
For all three factions, the only path to safety lay in neither of the other two having any place of safety in that town. Clarks was the focus of it because of several factors, but mostly because the local police had effectively abandoned their public trust and given up on the place.
Ha, that’s soft. In Glasgow, Clarks is a shoe shop. That tells you how mean the rest of the city must be. :)
reminds me of the nun in the Emilio Estivez / Mick Jagger movie: Freejack. the bad guy slaps her in the face trying to get info out of her, and looks at his manicure as if he just broke a nail…HA… the nun then says something about turning the other cheek… and kicks him in the nuts with combat boots… basically the church where she does her shtick is in a WHOLE lot worse neighbor hood than we have in the here and now…
I wonder what Sydney will have Anvil do. Come on Dave, don’t leave us “hanging.”
It’s more brutal than I was expecting. I never expected to see sydney chocking someone to death.
chocking doesn’t always have to be “to death.” But some level of brutality *is* necessary when fighting some one with this level of resiliency to harm.
choking… it’s contagious apparently.
The replies seem to be chockful of them.
Nothing takes an attacker from “fighting deliberately with thought and technique” down to “panicked scrabbling” like cutting off their access to air. It is then much faster to subdue them. After they are safely subdued, you let them breathe again.
Sydney does not have the strength to keep the light hook leverage on full, so she is going to use an anchor and pulley where Anvil is the anchor…
Remember Archimedes? “Give me a lever long enoughj and place to stand on, and I will move the Earth.”
The durability of the lighthook hasn’t been tested, not in the way the forcefield has. On its own, though, it hasn’t displayed the strength to impede V. Which is where Anvil enters, stage right. Left. Above. From somewhere.
I think it will be Anvil putting on foot on the back of V’s head and the other foot on the base of V’s neck, grabbing the light hook and pulling. Gives new meaning to the term Deadlift.
Haven’t gone through all the comments, so someone might have pointed this out… It looks to me like she left a purple glowing present… Boom?
That’s just his regeneration effect.
Actually, you are the first one that I have seen to think that. All others have said it’s V’s regen showing, which is much more plausible since Max has shifted to full strength.
Did Maxima also break Vehemence’s thumb? Was that the other crack sound?
Yup, she broke his thumb. Broke it pretty good. :p
Yes.
I must admit even I was beginning to doubt this fight could be won without deus ex machina. But this page demonstrates exactly that it can be done and how. Faith restored.
I have to admit that the first panel hand me confused. I was like, “What the hell is that … thing Maxima is grabbing onto? Maybe Vehemence grew something new to go with the electrical charged diamond shards or something?…” Then, after flipping back and forth between pages, I’m ashamed that I didn’t right away know that it is Vehemence’s thumb being broken backwards. *shakes head while thinking ‘Ow!’ Or, rather, “YAAG!!”* :D
Am I the only one that imagined the theme song that plays whenever Popeye eats his spinach?
Apparently not…https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1582/comment-page-1#comment-284025
I wrote that comment before I read your comment here…
Well, I have previously imagined it with Vehemence since for a long while he was very much like an evil eloquent Popeye while Maxima is more like a good Bluto who has his high strength all the time.
It pretty much breaks down after that since no one really makes a good Olive Oil.
Arianna?
She’s so outside the fights that I don’t know if she could ever make the “damsel in distress” portion of Olive Oil’s resume. Don’t know if the in love with her portion would ever be possible either.
Maybe in this case Glory is more the Olive Oil they are both fighting over.
Well, we know it is not Dabbler. I have a feeling she lost her ‘extra virgin’ status a long time ago.
and I doubt Xuriel’s ever been “Cold-pressed”
Unless she got crazy with some ice giants.
For those who care, her last name is officially spelled ‘Oyl’. She is the daughter of Cole and (ba)Nana Oyl. Her brother Castor Oyl has a daughter Deisel. Her uncles are Otto Oyl and Lubry Kent Oyl.
DaveB has anybody told you about the fact that someone is using Harems powerset in a book series by R. J. Ross called Cape High?
Considering how hes copied off other things I don’t think he’d be too concerned in creative infringement. Someone probably made that power before he used it for one of his characters.
The idea of a single brain with multiple bodies isn’t new – the idea, in several variations, has appeared in science fiction and fantasy for decades, at least. Spider Robinson has a character along those lines in [strong]Lady Slings The Booze[strong]. You’ve also got Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man, from Marvel Comics,
Triplicate GirlDuo Damsel from DC’s Legion of Superheroes.Adding teleportation to that power is novel, but seems a pretty straightforward and obvious addition. I don’t think that this is an IP that can be enforced at any level.
I know. I was just trying to let him and you know about a good book series on kindle.
and the evil cheerleader from Sky High, though i’m not sure she can teleport…
Don’t quite get how V doesn’t just yank that light hook thing and ether tear it or pull wonder spaz like the looser of a tug of war.
He’s choking under the pressure?
No but really. I guess we are supposed to believe all of this is happening rather quickly (this comic, for all its attempts to pay lip service to realism in fantasy has always played the “talking is a free action” trope fairly straight ) and Vehemence is playing mental catch up for once instead of them. Last time he easily threw it off it had the start of a simple loose grip on him this time she has a much better grip and I believe she is trying to get Anvil to come in and help keep it there quickly (hopefully the distraction of the current struggle broke everybody free of the hypno boobs [all power to them] long enough for everyone to do the reading for this assignment!). Yanking her around wouldn’t free him to regenerate his wind pipe which is probably what he is heavily focused on right now.
Maybe Sydney will get lucky and some of them read it in the moment of lucid thought they had between being Violence Zombies and Boob Zombies. Cause who knows how much distraction it took to break them free. Maybe only the shattered earth managed to get most of them in the end. Math is probably still lost to us.
Achilles: Guys? Are we winning? Go team! Um, when everybody is packing up to leave… ᵖᶫᵉᵃˢᵉ ᵈᵒᶰ’ᵗ ᶠᵒʳᵍᵉᵗ ᵐᵉ ﹕ᶜ
uh…. try thinking clearly while suffocating, with a broken thumb…. :)
Shock. Surprise. Not thinking straight or focussing at the moment. He can’t breathe, so he’s just thinking “gotta regenerate, gotta regenerate”, but the molestorb is stopping that because it’s in the way. He may not even be fully aware yet of what exactly is stopping him from breathing. He just knows something is and that “Vehemence needs oxygen badly!”
In short, he’s off-balance mentally and haven’t had time yet to calm down and think.
Anvil will put him in a full nelson, imobalizing him, so he can’t grab the lighthook and toss Sydney around.
Max or others may need to use Anvil as a punching bag to get her strength up. but given the way the fight has already gone she might be ok.
I wonder what will happen to V after he passes out? Will he shrink? Be funny if he was a 5′ skinny dude1
I’m thinking that Halo is trying to stall just a bit while still hoping that Anvil gets in between herself and Vehemence, BEFORE he realizes that the Lighthook is wrapped around his throat and he tries to blindly flail away at Halo in his panicked state of mind… not noticing, until it’s too late of course, that ANVIL is in the way of him ACTUALLY hitting Halo… another “oops!” moment for him to say the least.
as for what happens after she intercepts the hit and gets charged up herself… hmm… maybe using the “assumed at this point in time” UNbreakable energy tentacle that is the Lighthook in a choke-hold / garrote? any purely physical rope, or steel cable or rebar could be broken almost instantly by either of them at this point, either V breaks it trying to get OUT of it, or Anvil breaks it accidentally trying to put V INTO it and it just can’t handle it… thus they need something stronger than that… and the use of the Lighthook is revealed. it was mentioned in an earlier post that the first time Sydney tried to grab him with it it failed when he spun out of it… i think that that only meant that Sydney didn’t “really” think about how to PROPERLY grab someone, this time though, she’s prepared for it, and as you can see she realized her mistake from the first time and this time has it wrapped around ITSELF, so he can’t get out of it at all anymore because all the struggle will just affect the TENTACLE… NOT her playing “crack-the-whip” with it and losing, like last time.
Love this…. and the idea that — it’s only been a few minutes of ‘comic time’ battle while it’s been months ‘real world time’ (and I leave all the others to contemplate just what ‘real world’ implies…).
Nice to see Sydney contributing in her wonky way and Max not becoming a blotch on what’s left of the pavement. And… somebody needs to run over and kiss Jiggawatt’s boo boos once she hits the ground.
I volunteer for the “Halo Mark” :P
WAGing at the moment, but it looks to me as if Sydneys plan is to use her forcefield as a fulcrum, and the lighthook, now firmly anchored, as a lever. In the big center panel she is well off to V’s side, but in the final she is behind him.
‘Give me a lever long enough, and I shall move the world.. or V, offa my boss’
Yep, V is definitely going to reassess the ‘no-kill’ rule for Sydney if he gets the chance.
Is using the lighthook orb really straining Sydney that much, or is she just showing off to look tougher?
Using the orb isnt straining Sydney, its more or less a mind-controlled rope and takes very little effort to move it around, so its little effort to create it and wrap it around V’s neck. Whats taking the effort is her then pulling on that rope with all her strength to keep the tension on V’s throat.
And if Anvil grabs the rope and pulls… and I suspect that every time V yanks back, it would make Anvil stronger….
Wait… V is anchored and Maxima is on the ground punching him. Why is the ground moving UP? It makes as much sense as standing in a boat and trying to blow in your own sail.
Superpowers. They do weird crap.
True dat.
MythBusters proved that it IS POSSIBLE to do that!
I remember that episode. Yep. You -can- blow your own sail.
But to answer Brainz question, SOME of the ground is going up because when the center of the ground is going down, it displaces the ground all around it – so the rest of the ground has two directions it can go – either down, there there’s another 6 sextillion tons of rock, or up, where there’s just air.
ALTERNATIVE reason the ground is going up….
Vehemence’s feet are ‘bolted’ to the ground, so Maxima is hitting so hard that even the ground upon which he’s bolted is going upwards WITH him.
That’s the whole point – Maxima is there with her back to the same ground. the force of the punch is pushing them apart, so if anything, the ground should be moving down, not up.
I don’t really have a problem with what the ground is doing but just for Devil’s Advocate fun:
The center of the ground is also going up.
I think for the other part Brainz was expecting that because of how Maxima is braced against the ground that for any energy she puts into Vehemence’s throat a similar amount is going back towards the ground like the top and bottom of a floor jack lifting a car: Anything you put under that floor jack had better be able to take the weight of the car its lifting. At the very least Brainz was probably expecting that the chunk of ground directly underneath Maxima’s shoulder would be pinned down just like Sydney’s shield is doing for the spot its standing on.
Even if I go with an idea I had above that Maxima’s telekinetic field has the instinctively deployed ability to latch on to some energy field (a field generated by the earth? something else extra-dimensional perhaps?) that can be used as an anchor in more situations than just flight it doesn’t really explain why the bit of ground her shoulder is on would not be kept down as V is forced up.
I think we have to go with artistic license on this one. Not that it really effects anything other than the visual. If her shoulder had been kept down by the opposite force Vehemence would still be just as screwed.
Another conversation above has me wondering if she is holding his right arm down with her left or I would have expected more of her slow (no extra speed) punch’s force to have been bled off by him moving away from it. He has lots of distance he can flex back and stand up before he separates from the earth.
There seems to be some overlap with her pool of abilities? Strength seems to grant speed (velocity) or else his super durable self would have just been lifted up and away with much less damage assuming he didn’t just dodge by starting to stand up and bend backwards a bit. The zero-point thing discussed above and on other pages can show why, as effectively it is really just her field touching him, she takes no damage at the point of contact (so she has contact point durability levels as high as her strength levels… sheesh) but if we also grant her the same effect speed should give then some explanations are in order before the whole “she has to strategically choose between her power pool” thing starts to break down a bit.
Is speed just perception/reaction time increase then? So speed would be the power to think and react fast but strength would be the power needed to actually GO fast? That could work maybe… yeah, actually I like that more and more as I think about it.