Grrl Power #284 – Dogpile tactics
That guy is a tool but I kind of like him. He’s a guy who’s supremely confident in himself for no good reason. He’d probably either really get along with or mutually annoy Achilles.
I changed Maxima’s line in the flashback panel, originally she said “sewer line” but I didn’t want people to think Sydney’s plan was to drown Vehemence in sewage, so I’ll go back and change Maxima’s original line. Speaking of Sydney’s plan, her idea for Anvil’s contribution was mostly to create a crater for the water to flow into, and to hit close enough to him to loosen his grip on the ground. She didn’t know how his anchor worked, but she guessed it had to have something to hold onto as opposed to being a gravity thing or “unflight” or whatever. She thought creating the crater might snap a water line, what she didn’t count on was Maxima’s punch fucking up the whole parking lot. In this case it worked better because the area damaged increased the chance that something important broke under the ground. Originally I was going to put a fire hydrant over on the curb in the panels where we see the water leaking out, and Sydney guessed there was a line running between it and the restaurant. But that curb has been in a lot of panels and I’d have to add it to a ton of pages. Also a quick visit to google street view shows that fire hydrants aren’t usually located quite that close to parking spots, at least in the layout I based the steakhouse in the comic on, it would be on the far side of the hedges, so I don’t know how important it is to include that.
It looks like it’s just about over for Vehemence. We’ll see if he has any tricks left.
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Reverse psychology. Classic
I love Anvil’s look when Sydney said that.
Pride comes before the fall. This guy has just not realized how hard he fell for it.
The old Scoville charm works again.
Yeah but it seems it works a little too often. Ya know?
Some boys can be easily predicted.
Hahaha, that lisp! I love it :)
I loved the lines as well, I spoke them in my head several times while not talking in the train! bIG gRIN!
Elsewhere, in a deaf community support website:
“… and then, in the train, this guy with a lisp kept repeating strange threats, with a sinister grin. I was terrified!”
Now children today we test to see if the human body, all be it with super powers can survive underwater with a crushed windpipe!
And a noose around said crushed windpipe
If he could make pants or new limbs using vehement energy, couldn’t he substitute oxygen with vehement energy?
The question is how long will he be down there, and can he focus on channeling his energy wile having a crushed windpipe and lack of oxygen.
I would think regeneration is slightly easier to focus on, but lack of oxygen might make fabrication a bit harder. How long can he keep it up with all the weight pushing him down causing him to strain more thus burning more oxygen? Of course this assumes he can burn energy for oxygen, that he needs to breath or cant just turn his lungs off with energy.
but in the end hes in a position that if its possible he might eventually run out of energy or just pass out.
I think there’s another thing that has to be addressed. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, only transformed. When he passes out or dies there’s a very real possibility that instead of a gentle release like a deflating balloon the power he’s absorbed may release explosively like releasing it from a clenched fist. Sydney may be very glad she still has a shield up.
This is a setting in which “Vehemic Energy”, “Tantric Energy” and magic in general are real things. I’m not convinced that “Conservation of Energy/Mass” is relevant here.
Why not? Casters still need mana, so they are still turning 1 form of energy (mana) into another form of energy (the magical effect).
It’s just that casters are capable of storing, and absorbing from the universe, extreme amounts of magical energy, and are able to release it at will
And then they cast an ice spell and reverse entropy, breaking all three laws of thermodynamic at once.
And reducing the amount of Mana (one kind of energy) to reduce the amount of heat (another kind of energy), thus reducing two kinds of energy at the same time, without converting either into anything.
If you take the heat out of 1 thing and turn it into ice, that heat simply goes somewhere else. Distrubuted over a gigantic section of space if you want, so you don’t actually notice it.
If that’s what an freezing/ice spell does, sure. But that’s just assumption, we have no idea how it actually works.
So here, another example:
Given the size Vehemence grew – and the mass generated by it, and the energy needed to generate that mass – he should have used up an amount of energy that could easily level multiple cities.
All that from people punching each other in the face, with nowhere near the energy needed to generate that amount of mass. So, where does this energy he uses to grow and make pants *actually* come from? Does he absorb and transform matter from his surrounding? That still needs far more energy than should be generated here (and it’d also need extremely fine-tuned manipulation of particle physics to create the proper elements).
Especially since, if “vehemic energy” is just converted, not actually created from scratch, other kinds of energy would have to be reduced. I see nothing of that here.
Essentially, Vehemic Energy seems to come out of nowhere. It doesn’t actually *reduce* the violence used to generate it, nor does it reduce the energy used to create said violence. That alone already breaks Conservation of Energy.
And since it seems to come from nowhere, it might as well disappear into nowhere.
Many of the heroes and villains we have seen are able to utilise far more energy than is present in the environment. And/or create physical manifestations which, as you say, would be even more energy-intensive to create.
This is, of course, assuming that it is indeed created out of nothing. Scientist types seem to get their knickers in a twist trying to maintain some law which says that this does not happen. Despite the fact that, at a quantum level, it can happen.
But, if only to stop them whining, I look at super powers * in a way that could explain this capability, without upsetting them. Namely that supers gain an ability to access extra-dimensional energies (and/or matter) if their powers require more than is in the local environment.
In this way, the only energy required is that necessary to open the door to these other dimensions. Once that has been done, they have access to whatever energy or matter that their power can handle.
In this way, beating up on Vehemence is giving him the energy required to open the barriers, and to keep them open, but the amount of power he can then use is disproportionate to the amount input.
This logic does have consistency with other characters, Maxima being a prime example. She is able to summon massive energy, apparently out of nowhere. Presumably her power allows her to access the other dimensions with negligible input energy.
Vehemence’s advantage being that, although his way requires energy to open the doors, he can then utilise it in very versatile ways. In addition to simply getting more back than he invests.
* And magic, although that has more latitude for breaking the rules as it is a catch-all term that might cover many different mechanics. Although there is the possibility that magic is simply a particular type of super power, that uses rituals and the like. But underneath the trappings share the same root mechanics. Possibly psionics too.
In worlds & settings in which magic is a part of that reality, magic is still considered to be using, directing & focusing energies that already exist. Some call it “mana,” or “ley line energy,” or whatever, but the basic principle is the same. Conservation of Energy is still intact.
The Physical Laws of “action & reaction” still apply too…Energy & matter are directed (sometimes transformed in the process) into specific effects.
Then how is Vehemic Energy generated?
It doesn’t actually reduce Violence (or the energy used to create violence), or at least, it doesn’t reduce them to a noticeable degree.
So, where did Vehemence get the energy necessary to (create the mass to) grow several sizes? The amount of energy needed for that should be enough to destroy the city – no attack here created enough energy to do that, not even all of them together, especially not if you consider that all Vehemence should get is the “side-effect” of Vehemic Energy.
But no, if you punch someone in the face, you get all the regular energy conversions, and you get Vehemic Energy *on top* of that. It is, essentially, coming out of nowhere, far out of proportion with the available energy to create it.
And if it comes out of nowhere, it can also disappear back to nowhere.
It could be that Violence transforms the latent ‘mana’ energies that exist everywhere into vehemic energy.
It could be that, borrowing terms from Dragon Age universe, violence ‘thins the veil’ that seperates this dimension from the dimension that magical energy comes from.
All super powers/magic are able to tap into energy from that dimension (each super using the energy differently, and able to draw a different amount. Accounting for the different kinds of super powers), and Vehemence is capable of using this specific form of thining to draw more energy.
In the same way, lust would ‘thin the veil’ in a different way, and Succubi are able to abuse that specific thining to grow in power
Every time you try to apply real-world physics to a comic, God kills a catgirl.
Please, think of the catgirls!
https://images.uncyc.org/commons/b/be/God_kills_catgirl.gif
But I applyed video game logic to a comic, how does that work?
I dunno. I was just looking for an excuse to use that animated gif.
No problem there.
I think that science-wise, both tantric and vehemic energy are specific types of energy accessible to tantric/vehemic casters, that other types of energy not accessible to them get transformed into with particular actions. Then, if not used up aka transformed into /yet another/ type of energy (magic, kinetic, what have you), the energy dissipates into environment / turns back into that “default” energy.
What happens to the energy accumulated by the caster when they pass out is a good question, but in no way dictated by laws of physics. If it’s their will containing the energy in a “compressed” state, yes there can be an explosion. If it’s their body /absorbing/ it, then there is no reason for it.
Regarding the creation of pants, my bet is that they are illusory and are going to dissolve when V passes out :P
ok not really, but maybe this specific spell of creating matter does not use up as much energy as the pants contain by the E=mc^2 formula, with most of that energy coming from elsewhere and just being transformed into pants by the energy the caster actually spends.
Bye-bye, yet another catgirl.
Pretty sure that if Vehemence where to die with his current energy level, the release would be less of an explosion and more of a city-wide version of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WgT9gy4zQA
Ahh, now here I can actually talk as an expert. My basic qualification, having been trained in how to keep fighting, up to and including the point of unconsciousness, due to asphyxiation. Which makes me very capable of knowing the exact symptoms involved and how far progressed they are.
Lending credence to my assessment of my advanced qualifications. Namely the fact that I have been within seconds of unconsciousness and death by drowning. On two separate occasions.
Both times I was alone, so, like Vehemence here, could not expect external assistance. Which means that several key elements come into play:
Past experience. In my case I had two advantages. One being that at a very young age, I read about the prolonged time that pearl divers could remain underwater, due to the years of practice in breath holding and the physiological changes that take place as a result. And, having a swimming pool, was able to do that myself. Objectively, I would assess myself at being less than half way between and average person and one of those native pearl divers.
Not that either Vehemence or myself, in those circumstances, had the chance to hyperventilate or even take a deep breath. But there is still the physiological difference which gives an advantage. He has his super physique to give him an edge, I have better than average physiological optimisation for warding off oxygen starvation.
The other edge being my previous martial arts training. I think that we can assume that Vehemence has similar, probably from simple past brawling experience, rather than formal training.
Panic vs calmness. In these circumstances, keeping a cool head is everything. If panic sets in, you will die, unless blind luck intervenes. Past experience gives a massive advantage here. Vehemence does not strike me as being likely to panic.
Response planning. With hyperventilation, or other preparation, he and I would have minutes. Without a lungful of air, and already having expended finite resources fighting and struggling, the amount of time that Vehemence has to formulate an emergency plan, and implement it, is measured in seconds.
In my case I made a snap judgement on my best way to get air, and action the plan. With hindsight, I still consider it to be the best option I could have taken. Nonetheless it failed. But this was all with a clear head and body responding to orders.
As it became clear that path was failing, all the symptoms of oxygen deprivation, and loss of consciousness, were kicking in fast. I then had to come up with an alternative, start to do it, and trust that I had taken the right choice, because I could feel my body failing and the darkness closing in.
Clearly I made the right fall-back choice. I think Vehemence has time for one clear-headed attempt, and can survive failure. After that, his next option had better be something he can implement with minimal time and effort. Or he will be unconscious and, depending on things out of his control, possibly dead.
Going by limited evidence and a comic art representation, V is panicking. The pinpoint pupil in panel 10 seems to indicate that. V has shown no fighting skill beyond an experienced street brawler. I don’t think he ever had any martial arts training to give him the necessary reflexes to react effectively to thing not going his way. If that is so, he should start thrashing around at maximum strength in the next strip. If he’s not panicking, he will try another spell. Maybe a whole-body version of the electric shock.
I don’t think he’s really panicing, so much as uncontrolably angry. Which in this situation, probably has rhoughly the same effect
Berserk or panic doesn’t allow for a clear head. And if V ever needed to think his way out of trouble, now is the time.
Fair comment.
*starts preparing the Scooby Snax, for the next issue*
“Shakes a box of Sydney snax”.
No no no! Thanks, but I prefer the lining of my stomach intact. Not to mention tear ducts that are not jammed in the on position.
To add to that, Max broke his thumb, which probably caused an involuntary scream of pain, thereby emptying his lungs before she throat-punched him. Combine that with his body burning up O2 at a much accelerated rate due to anger, exertion, adrenaline, possibly/probably panic, and no preparation time (since he thought he was basically at the top of his game and was untouchable), I doubt he’d even have 30 seconds to comprehend what to do.
As an example, empty out your lungs, then run up and down a set of stairs. I doubt you’d make it a flight (about 4 seconds or so) before you’re forced to breathe.
No, he does not have the advantage of being ready, Sydney’s whole plan hinges on that.
The sequence of events is
Jiggawatt latches onto his arm (he is surprised) => Maxima punches him in the throat (he loses air) => Sydney catches the punched-in throat with molestorb (no chance to inhale again, and he is still behind on initiative, possibly panicking) => he gets de-anchored and brought down (still no chance to react, at least none taken, due to surprise and possibly panic) => he gets covered in water.
At no point does he have clear-headedness&preparation advantage. If he is stalled in that position for some time – say, half a minute – maybe he’ll then have the chance to use his theoretical training/experience to do something smart, but so far? Nope. And I don’t think Sydney’s plan is going to give him that half a minute.
Oddly enough, I was not ready either when I started to drown. But, there again, I did not have a bunch of people trying to keep me that way. Which can be rather distracting. So I take your point.
Making him run out of energy is the best way to beat him.
Achilles could handle that easily. ;)
Besides the crushed windpipe part, because that wouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Achilles “handles” a crushed windpipe by simply NOT succumbing to it. His windpipe simply refuses to be crushed under the applied force…That’s pretty good way to handle it, no?
;)
Achilles would handle not getting his windpipe crushed. He would not handle the fact that he’d be currently be sent flying in space past Jupiter. Because… yknow…. boring hurling into the void for all eternity when you can’t die.
Actually, Drowning someone with a crushed Windpipe and a noose around his neck is as useful as pulling a plastic bag over the head of someone who is underwater (saw that in a movie once).
They already can´t breathe!!!!!
What it does here, is make sure V passes out, even if Syd loses her Grip somehow, or his windpipe regenerates despite Syds best efforts.
Redundant yes, but think about it, to regenerate he has to deal with the lighthook, If he does manage both he’s still underwater. He is running out of air and having to deal with more and more challenges to overcome. Ether he is overwhelmed or he blows his vehemic load in a panic.
Haha blow his vehemic load… That’s what she said:p
Wow, that was a good laugh.
In my honest opinion, violence sucks for everyone affected by it…”Blow” is just an expression.
It doesn’t make that comment any less funny though.
:)
Which is essentially what i said…
When taking on someone this powerful, no redundancy is unwarranted.
Also water adds on psychologically. A lot of Sydney’s plan has been psychology so far, him getting distracted, him not having a chance to react, him getting panicked… Being drowned is scary even if it doesn’t affect your oxygen supply. Have you ever looked down from a high place through glass floor?
Looking down a glass floor. Had to spend cash just to confirm heights sucks. :p
Strategizing AND people skills… She’s good.
Sydney so should be saying “Boys are so thimple.”
^ +1
I hope Dave decides to edit the text just enough to fit it in there. ;)
But it should be “Boyth are so thimple.” You forgot to add the lisp on the “s” after “boy.”
You forgot “so” so it should be “boyth are tho thimple.”
Ok, if we’re going to get really nit-picky about it, Mr. Nose Boop is missing some lisping too:
Panel 12, “buthy” (or maybe “bithy” to make it spellout like it sounds) instead of “busy.” Also, “Chucklth” instead of “Chuckles.”
Last panel: “thith” instead of “this,” “wasenth” instead of “wasn’t,” and “throngeth” instead of “throngest.”
ITYM “wathen’t” instead of either “wasenth” or “wasn’t”, and “throngetht” instead of “throngeth” or “throngest”.
If we are being nit-picky, that is.
Ya’ know, it’s rare to see a comment nesting this far in for purposes of nit-picking, instead of puns…
;)
You mean punth thurely?
hello ith thith the dithkworld igorth convention :)
been reading a lot of terry prattchett recently
To quote Daffy Duck in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, “Thith ith the latht time I work with thomeone with a thpeech impediment.”
…
…
I was gonna say that TP needs to do a superhero story, but then I realized Cohen the Barbarian :-)
And Susan Sto Helit. And ‘Time Boy’. And …
“lut si” “DEATH”
But would it be going too far if Grrl Power adds new cast with names like Helen Weils or Eva D’Struccione to the roster?
Thomebody thtop uth now!
Sufferin’ succotash…where are Daffy and Sylvester when we need them?
No, that’s “Thufferin’ Thuccotath.”
;)
Thanks for the correction :p
Double correction: it’s “thufferin thuccotash” if you listen to it. Also someone hit the bottom of the chain above. Can’t reply any further. :-)
I always thought it was “Thufferin’ Thuccotathshthshppptht.”
You’re getting spittle all over the internet, all of you.
Internet is already full of porn, we’re just providing some extra lubricant…
I feel unclean now ….
mixing porn and bugs bunny characters…really?….
do go on
I like Anvil’s expression in panel 13. She knows what Sydney’s doing…
I’m thinking that, with a pool of water there, it might be better to NOT get Jiggawatt back on V’s arm. If he tries to charge up again, he’ll just be grounded out…Which is MORE damage that he’ll have to drain his energy to heal.
To be honest, I’m surprised Mr. Nose-Boop is on his feet again…He was the first to be Anvil’ed out of the fight. But Sydney’s being truthful…A girl DID beat him with one finger. :D
The aggro aura woke everyone up. After it stopped, all the people with knockout drugs in their system went down again. I gues they never gave this guy his drugs
…or the ones still on their feet have resistant defenses such that the watch cannot penetrate their skin-as Dabbler worried about V earlier in the fight…
More surprised the guy who had his arm broken (Dislocated?) by Max is actually helping.
“After his arrest, he cooperated with law enforcement and aided them in subduing the instigator of the violence.” – Plea bargain 101
Especially considering he would have no idea V set him up.
Maybe he would. Depends on how exactly V went about it. If he omitted some crucial information the guy has already caught on, his “I’ve been set up” reflex may have already kicked into action.
They are all standing in the water while pinning him down, so without Jiggawatt there Vehemence could shock them all and get out of the pile on.
But everybody else is on top of Vehemence, pinning him down in the water. If he tries to charge up, he’s the most grounded of everyone there. He’ll get the worst of it; everyone else would only get a relatively mild ‘tingle’ compared to what V gets.
At the voltage he’s pumping out I think they’d all get considerably more than a tingle. Also even the ones on his back are going to get wet and he’s made of conductive material. Yes, he’ll get the worst of it, but it won’t be fun for any of them. Not sure how shock-proof some of the more invulnerable ones are but the squishier heroes could be in trouble.
it’s Magic lightning… being generated by mysterious crystal formations created along a metal arm and somehow channeled towards the fist (rather than everything around said arm), while I agree that thinking anyone in the pool would get zapped seems sensible from a common sense perspective, there really are no guarantees here so getting Jiggawatt to make sure it doesnt do anything that might help V get free is definately the sensible option. Better safe than sorry has never been more applicable after all.
Even “magic” lightning is still lightning. Electricity will always take the path of least resistance. Part of what it takes to specifically direct the aim of magic lightning includes the means to direct it at will, probably like forming a path of ion-charged air before the lightning strikes…You know, just like the way real/non-magical lightning works…
My magic lightning forms a line of chorus girls and dances the Can-Can. Magic cheats sometimes.
Not necessarily. It’s possible that the focus of magic/mana is intentionally being formed & shaping ionized air in those particular patterns…Therefore, the electricity of the lightning conforms to those shapes.
Say that to a person who steps into a puddle of water that has a downed power line in it. Knew someone who had a friend that was killed that way. Took out a pole on a rainy night while drunk, tried to stumble out of their car and had their leg basically blown off.
The thing to keep in mind is, yes electricity goes to ground, but the ground can only absorb just so much power over time. The earth has resistance like anything else, and asphalt has been used as an electrical insulator, so the current might just travel back along the stream of water to get to a lower ground potential.
I can’t find the video, but I remember seeing something like a little league baseball game where lightning hit and it dropped several of the kids from the electric shock. So it’s entirely possible, especially if they’re in direct contact with V, to be electrocuted, even if they’re all under water.
Long ago before there were safety laws, before mandatory car insurance. There was a class.
Electricity was used. Students held hands, hardly any shock was felt, until giggling we let go and there was only one, after the happy feet dance the teacher scolded us, the corporal punishment was brought out, and we were mocked for being spanked at 13 years of age. So we found capacitors, charged em up and would say catch as we tossed them to someone.
Also the same class showing how water molecules can be split and turned into fuel for cars. One, a heavy gas. The teach held the jar normally. The other, a lighter then air gas. The teacher held the jar upside down, he lit off each so we could see how the heavy gas burned with a thump and how the lighter gas burned with a crack sound.
Humm should I say I’m an operating engineer? I’m not sure how the young would take it.
Sounds similar to the exploding coffee tin demo my chem 20 teacher did in class. Course that was to demonstrate the need for oxygen in combustion… The good one’s find ways to work around the bubble wrapping.
Jiggawatts on his arm incase HE tries to lightning.
I was surpised to see even the bad guys helping in on this. I guess they didn’t like being called out here just to get beaten up for Vehemence’s pre-brawl charge up.
Yea, how did she rellay it to the bad guys?
They were all knocked out when the betray got revealed
Either some of the team relayed it to them, or they’re seeing an opportunity to get even. Don’t know for certain since they just showed up.
Its possible some of them were still ‘up’ and heard V speech-a-fying. Especially those with defenses the knockout cuffs couldn’t penetrant.
There is also an element of mob mentality. Lots of people rushing to obey a shouted order, and just coming off a bit of hypno-boobing.
Everyone went from boobs to bashing…Where did Dave go wrong here?…
:/
One of the most powerful effects of hypnotism is to implant a command. It may well be that Halo is, intentionally or not, taking advantage of this effect. Despite the default for boob hypnotism normally being for a more primal conditioning.
Just be thankful that she did not say something else, such as “Walk like an Egyptian!”
Not enough boobs? O.o
There’s NEVER enough boobs…
That explains everything. Includes why my life doesn’t feel complete.
Boing….
I’ve always kept boobs close to heart…Unfortunately, those are my own & my preference lies with the boobs of other people. That’s why my life doesn’t feel complete.
Again, if he can channel vehement energy to make pants or limbs, then he can probably use it to substitute oxygen.
It would cost him alot of power though
I think that’s part of Sydney’s plan…Keeping Vehemence busy expending power to counter the minimal use of violence that’s pigpiling on him.
Good, the more power he burns trying to remain conscious, the better.
Boilerplate? Aaa that’s who that is. I already didn’t recognize the guy without the chains around his shoulders
Boilerplate had his arm dislodged in the middle of the fight by Maxima and has yellow hair. This is unnamed villain that started the fight by trying to punch Anvil. And he never wore plate of any kind.
Yeah, this is the guy that quite a few of us has referred to as “Mr. Nose Boop” because of what Anvil did to him.
Sweaty Boop?
Boop-boop-de-CRUNCH!
Aand… of course, Boilerplate DOES make an appeareance too, in one little panel that I passed over as “some guys piling on Vehemence”, just to embarass me. Nothing to see here, I’ll go stand in my corner.
Still don’t understand how he is fighting, instead of writhing on the ground. Vehemence aura must be some good stuff.
Yea, I meant the guy in the 5th pannel, along with Amourphes
Or part of his superpower set includes accelerated regeneration.
Or he is really pissed off at V. As long as he doesn’t have to fight, Boilerplate can just stand on V’s head with the rest.
Let us hope so, the more energy he has to drain the easier he will be to control. This plan far as I can tell is nothing to do with long term putting him down, its more to get some control over him while they work out a way to contain him. As of right now they could not put him in a prison (Yay, lots of violence) and he is strong enough to walk out without the whole team keeping watch over him.
One step at a time. But plan three steps ahead.
It may be a visualization problem. It’s a lot easier to visualize pants than oxygen. Creating solid objects is probably easier than creating gas.
Or as many people have said just power his body directly.
Nah, just make a snorkel, like he did the pants. Breathing will be restricted, but easy.
IF he fixes his throat first?
Where do you think he is attaching the snorkel?
First things first. Clear the obstruction.
A tracheotomy?
Are you expecting a ‘Ka-Snorkel’ to appear? or a ‘Ka-Aqualung’ even?
I wonder if the rest of the villains would be able to plea temporary insanity on account of mind-altering powers.
Probably. It even affected ARCSwat & the media reporters covering the scene, so there’s more than enough evidence of V’s mental coercion against them.
Only for the last bit for sure. The first part I guess their lawyers can tap dance a bit but ARC is probably going to be working hard to make their first arrests, which resulted in the complete destruction of the area on TV, stick. They will be claiming they know when the effect started as it altered ARC personnel at that point as well. Dave suggest Dabbs could resist it somewhat so she was probably aware of when it started. She can testify and appear on an official government super squad as a “consultant” so she must have a solid fake identity? As far as that goes their unique types of viewpoints would probably make it so ARC could just about make up stuff and make it stick. If they file that someone there had some mumbo jumbo or super powered way of just knowing when it began who’s gonna say them nay?
The problem here is that it’s MAGIC mind control, and as far as I know the ARC mages weren’t scanning for that to start with. There’s no way to tell whether they were or weren’t being influenced right from the beginning, and the more intelligent of them will bank on this and not continue to fight (especially now that they’ve seen that they can’t win).
I guess its all up to whether the “good guys” are willing to fudge things a bit. For as easy as this magic and powers things makes it for the bad guys to lie it makes it just as easy for the good guys. Its not like there is anyway to tell if one of the ARC mages ran a detection of some kind earlier on.
If they are good guys then there will be no fudging. If they do that, then there could be a mis-carriage of justice. It is not for them to act as judge and jury, deciding the innocence or guilt of the suspect and massaging the evidence to support their own theory.
Especially as they are too close to the action to be objective. Just as a doctor makes his own worst patient, no police officer should allow themselves to make such decisions. Down that path lies the vigilante and the corrupt cop.
The officer should present the facts as accurately as possible. And if that leans towards the defendant getting an aquittal, then perhaps it is because he is actually innocent!
Whereas, if they distort the truth, and are caught in the lie, it will only lead to all their evidence being tainted, in this and every other case they have testified in. Leading to the possibility of many guilty parties escaping justice!
Pretty much every cop/legal show I’ve actually taken the time to watch most of the way through has had at the very least a moment where the clearly good guy considered bending the rules for the greater good. There are no shades of grey in Dave’s comic world? No humanity in his beings?
That said its a little early for that type of crisis in this story’s characters’ development and V is the most clear threat to order compared to the others but then again he did the big fight with a big long term villain right away and one of the good guys is already established as a double agent at least as far as spying goes so that’s already getting grey. Who knows how Dabbler thinks of these things. I guess we are really talking about Maxima and the general though since they will follow her lead in this. *shrugs*
All THAT said, its great to see you around and posting again a bit there Yorp. :)
The idea of Miss Hypnoboobs testifying in court amuses me for some reason.
Having her on the stand that close to the judge could lead to a speedy trial.
I think there would be very few judges that could resist the temptation for a “private witness testimony” in the Judge’s Chambers…
Nah, he’ll just be thinking, “Not a breeder. Not a breeder.”
Since those mind-altering powers were so dramatic for the time that they were definitely employed, and equivalent effects notable absent for the fight prior to that, I don’t think that’s a plea that would stick.
Well, the bad guys would just claim that he cranked it up and turned it on everybody cause he had more power reserves to do so and also didn’t need any particular side to win besides himself.
And that’s when you have the hairdresser testify he wasn’t under any form of mind control. It gets the bad guys off the street and gives the guy who just made a mistake and realized it before committing any crime personally a break (IF he takes the deal).
On the other hand, I don’t know how much work he’ll get done with having to testify at all these trials.
I think the hairdresser actually did fight a bit (some of screen as it were) so he should be willing to make a deal. They might be willing to let the weaker ones make deals as well to shore things up.
However, the ones claiming mind control could just say its not the kind of mind control that it is easy to be aware off. After all V was messing with the part that does the awareness’ing right? So they mostly only knew it was happening because of the odd bit at the end where everybody was pumped up to the point of attacking even their allies and the fact that normally they are all sweet little angels who wouldn’t dream of killing police. With footage of the wave going out and everybody suddenly waking up and attacking allies on TV to back them up.
Heck, there is enough evidence for this to be true that even we the audience, with our extra views and thought bubbles from the comic to go on, could realistically believe it. The readers down here in the comments used to have a theory that the reason he got them all to group up and attack a powerful super group so easily was because of a lesser version of his vehemence wave power ramping up their aggression etc… I mean imagine their lawyer turning towards the judge at the end of presenting all the evidence and thought I just suggested above and then saying, “Your honor, as amazing as some of my clients abilities are many of them are not really any different then some special tank made say 20 years in the future. Most basically only can shoot and have no defense. Why would they ever in their right minds go up against THAT??” Points to screen where it shows a montage of the press conference power displays edited for brevity and to focus on the destruction and defense the lawyer desires and ending in Maxima kicking a tank across the landscape and then standing evilly grinning in partial silhouette against her own fireball stretching for as far as the camera can see.
So they could not only beat his testimony down they would probably get all the charges dropped against the barber despite testifying against him meaning he would end up even better off than the deal he made.
This is why I expect these super cops of the future to feel a powerful urge to sooner or later fib a bit at what kind of detection powers they have etc… or otherwise they will watch countless supervillains get away on “what if” defenses that are almost impossible to pierce until either science catches up with these powers or the world has so many documented cases detailing the limits of even the most powerful supers in every type of power that lawmakers/judges feel confident in saying, “Well, all evidence suggests that power doesn’t work that way.” or “If he was capable of using this power that you suggest there would have been these signs.” etc…
And that will make for a good shades of grey story some day.
They still need proof though.
I doubt people are just going to take their word for it.
Like I was sayin’ a while back…. with a big muscled bruiser like that, if you cut the oxygen off they’re going to come to a stop. Putting him underwater and keeping him there is a fine way to do that. Sydney’s thinking is running very parallel to The Hero’s thinking for the Igli fight in Heinlein’s GLORY ROAD.
Or possibly that Maestro vs. Professor Hulk fight. Pretty sure one of the hulk’s thought bubble lines was “I’m going to drown in three inches of water.”
As long as V doesn’t calm down and realize with his endless pool of power and ability to will stuff into existence he could get by (either directly powering his metabolism or Ka-Oxygen [summon oxygen maybe? ]). Maybe what he will do is relax and play dead while doing one of the above and wait for a moment to rabbit. He never intended to kill them all according to him. He was just going to leave when he was tanked up as far as he felt was needed or wanted. He just stopped to kill Max cause she convinced him she was a major threat with a dark side so he wasn’t sure he could run before she used her super speed to catch up and blow his head off, well, blow it up really.
Sydney is banking on two things here:
1. His pool of power isn’t endless. There isn’t enough violence going on around him right now to cover even breathing-with-crushed-throat, even less so if he keeps up the regeneration attempts despite them not working, which brings us to point two:
2. If stuff keeps happening, he’s going to keep panicking. Sydney’s plan has been straight transition from action to action so far, that did not allow him to gather his thoughts, and there’s no reason to think she hasn’t thought it through step by step up to the “and that’s when he’s contained and harmless” finish line. Dabbler hasn’t done anything since hypnoboobs, and she’s a powerful and versatile caster, with the advantage they have now she’s going to come up with something too. Maxima may have been too busy to strategize while being pinned by V, but now that Sydney gave her a breather she’s probably going to contribute too.
Of course, his panic might at some point manifest in him using the last of his power on a simple escape spell, like teleport or something, which is going to give him the recurring villain status AND end the fight.
Goodbye, V.
I just wanted to let you know; Pander always hated you and Max will likely blow off your head if she ever sees you again :)
…Without any warning or opportunity to surrender peacefully first…
still on the table right now, he has shown he is beyond control even with the whole team. Personally I hope Dave moves away from the normal “good guys don’t kill” Mentality of most hero comics.
Most heroes don’t even adhere to that rule.(Even Superman doesn’t.)
A more accurate rule would be: “Heroes try their best not to kill.”
In Superman’s fight with Doomsday, he fully realized that killing was probably the only way to stop him. Doomsday went through the Justice League & numerous other heroes wound up injured, crippled, hospitalized (I forget if any actually died fighting him). Sometimes the only way to stop the killing in to kill the killer.
Exactly, Supes tried his best, but in the end, he knew what had to be done.
Darkseid DID outright murder Dan Turpin, a hard working police officer, simply for telling Darkseid and his goons that they were NOT welcome and Earth, and to never return after New Genesis showed up and declared Earth under their protection. Something EVERYONE on Earth, including Superman agreed with.
This is the last thing Dan Turpin heard.
Darkseid: “Remember. Victory has its price.” (Omega beams around Superman and hits Dan Turpin, killing him instantly.)
Yes, because Darkseid is a role model for superHEROES!!!
I like my dark heores, but you take the prize!
They can’t kill V! They’re cops, but he’s WHITE. They’d actually get in trouble.
No! Bad commentator! No bring political drama into for-fun thread!
*smacks with rolled up newspaper*
Go to your room and think about what you did! No dessert for you!
He is part metallic now. That should be enough so they would not get in trouble.
Metal lives matter too!
Even green ones!
I dunno. Being drowned (or, at least, subdued) in sewerage would be indicative of the way V’s day has gone. Not something easily lived down. whatever happens next.
If that really were the case (a sewage pipe), Vehemence would actually regret trying to breathe again…
Breathing water when you have lungs instead of gills is pretty rough. I know because I have accidentally tried it a couple of times; not recommended.
Even if he got his head out of sewage far enough to breathe air, he’d still regret it.
You shouldn’t underestimate the kinetic energy potential of literally tons of water. Vehemence is smart enough to exploit that, so I wouldn’t count him out yet.
Ah, well, maybe we’ll see Gummy there lose some more teeth then.
No, kinetic energy is Anvil’s thing. Vehemence is violence. There’s no violence in a pool of water
Unless there’s a lot of it & it’s moving rapidly; it causes a lot of violence against anything it hits. Tsunami, anyone?
Yea, but in this case it’s just a rapidly filling pool of water
Even on smaller scales, fast-moving water can get violent…You ever had fire fighters aim (& shoot) a fire hose at you? There’s enough inherent kinetic energy in that water that firefighters have to have multiple guys hold it steady enough to aim it. But it’s not really “violent,” per se, unless something is hit with much of that force; there’s a lot less kinetic energy & violent effect out at the furthest range that the hose can squirt.
O.o
I think it depends on what counts as violence. Yes water can be very destructive, but there’s no intent to cause harm behind it. So does Vehemence get energy from the physical act of violence or from the emotions surrounding it?
IDK, just thought it’s worth thinking about. =)
Both. He finds violence and violent thoughts from sentient beings “tastier” is all.
Yeah… and a gun or a knife either but he refill his energy with those too.
He apparently gets energy from both, but I think this is in the category of “diminishing returns.” The thing is AMOUNT of violence. We have to assume that he’s been present for things like hurricanes, floods, natural disasters, and the like. While violent, there is no direct intent to harm, and the destruction has natural-law limits. With a fight with supers, you have people able to hit far harder than any normal human being, hitting people who are able to take more damage than the average building.
A crowd of angry looters might destroy a city block, but would the same amount of aggression and violence that they are outputting do much to, say, Anvil or Halo? It would just disappear against their powers. The violence itself is there, but to no outward effect. Now imagine, for example, Halo deciding to use the PewPew Orb against those same buildings. Who did more damage? Who enacted more violence? The crowd that broke windows and set fires, or Halo, who pretty much just did more destruction than the average tornado?
Net result, A bunch of people otherwise pinning down a man in a rapidly filling pool of water, even accounting for super-strength levels of both pinning and resisting, just is not in the same caliber or magnitude as something like a directed fire hose or a flood. It took a LOT to power him up to this much, with more violence than the L.A. Race Riots by his own admission, being concentrated into a single fight.
Heck, if I may use this analogy, the race riots and some natural disasters were probably like drinking good whiskey or scotch. This fight was more like downing Absynthe. What’s happening now is more like chugging a can or two of Bud Light.
Don’t be dissing Bud Light! A couple of 20 oz tall boys at the ball park on a summer evening is just fine.
Yeah, but what’s gonna get you drunker fasterl two doubleshots of whiskey, two cans of Bud Light, or two doubleshots of Absynthe?
Equate “Get drunk” with “Get Equipped with: Magic Powah” and the analogy holds, I think. :)
Water or a even a tsunami is not by definition violent. The water itself has no intent to harm or kill, even thought it invariably does. V needs intentional harm being conducted by thinking things. Its about the emotion driven element, like lust or passion, that he feeds on.
If V could pump himself up through the damage done by natural events, he’d only need to be a storm chaser during hurricane and tornado seasons. Those easily reach super hero levels of destruction, but do so without emotion or intent.
NO, Dave has specifically said that V can absorb violence from thunderstorms & rockslides,which have no “intent” behind them. He also said that violence with intent feeds Vehemence with “better flavor” or more nutritious.
Think of it like the difference between eating a 12 oz. steak or 12 oz. of chocolate…Which would be healthier for you?
I cant see from this page, but has Dave said how long the power gets held before evaporating? How much is naturally held? Does V need to get angry every morning so he gets out of bed a 90 pound weakling when he got into bed a 900 pound man mountain?
Nope. No hard numbers beyond the ‘mile limit’, and even that isn’t certain. All we got is a general idea of his powers, and that he needs to replenish his reserves. Whether it disappears over time is an assumption.
Nobody’s smart when they have their throat smashed in and having their head held underwater. Vehemence may have some tricks left, but his thought process is likely in panic mode.
As someone who suffers from asthma, when you can’t breathe, or can only get a tiny wisp of air, your whole existence narrows down to your next breath. It’s becomes your only focus. It is very hard to pay attention to anything else when you are desperate for air. And it only gets worse as the condition continues. It is very easy to slide into panic at these times. I speak from personal, hellish, experience.
Breathing really IS a matter of life & death; it’s a truism that the secret to a long life is to keep breathing. People who haven’t had problems breathing unfortunately have a tendency to downplay the effect that suffocation has with a person’s thought-processes.
For those who don’t really understand how quickly & easily panic can take hold, next time they take a bath or go swimming, hold their breath underwater…And see how long it takes for their brains to start screaming for air. And then remember that people who have REAL problems with breathing can’t “come up to the surface” as easily as they do.
For those who are curious about what asthma is like, go get a coffee stirrer straw. Now, put in your mouth and only breathe through the straw. That is a mild asthma attack. Next, still breathing through that skinny straw, run. Very shortly you will find you just can’t get enough air, no matter how hard you suck through that straw. That is a severe asthma attack, short only of an attack that completely closes off the airway.
If you don’t have your inhaler, you are stuck sucking air like you would through that skinny straw, sometimes for hours. I have nearly passed out from some of my attacks and the lack of oxygen. Panic is easy. Keeping your head, calming down, and forcing yourself to take deep breaths (or, as deep as you can) is very hard when all you can think is “I CAN’T BREATHE!!!”
Yep, and when your attention is narrowed down that far, you don’t think sensible.
That is why everybody who works on oil rigs (assuming a sensible safety regime) is required to undertake training in evacuating a crashed, submerged helicopter. Without which panic is the normal response, and death the most likely outcome.
Maybe.. except Anvil is there, and, as you say, you cannot understimate the KINETIC, and definetly not vehemic, energy of the water.
People keep forgetting that Anvil, at least as it stands now, has a minimum threshold limit on her energy absorption (why does that word have a p in it?)- elseways she’d be surrounded by an aura of cold and freeze any water she touches, absorbing that kinetic energy as she goes. It would make her much more dangerous and much better defended. If you want an example, look up the Slab combat final in the Whateley Academy stories.
Perhaps for the same reason that “ghost” now has an “h” in it. It never used to. Everybody spelt it the sensible way, namely “gost”. But the git who made the first dictionary decided to make English harder by adding random letters to certain words.
Or, maybe, changing something that would be better with a “b” to a “p”. I hope that he gets an extra poke with a sharp hot pitchfork* for that.
* Or that some of his feathers fall out, or one of his harp string snaps.
Maybe the answer is they remove his arms and legs, drain him of all his energy then supply him with a set of prosthetic limbs He will have to use his energy to manipulate them so he can walk and use his hands still and… Wait was that an Anime? ignore me …..
Oh OH! implant a bomb inside him…wait that was Fortress…
Drain him of all power and imprison him on a deserted tropical island.
One without any sharks or other major predators.
Sharks are endemic in tropical waters, although they might be relatively rare, or seasonal, in some areas. Of course not many species are likely to want to snack on people. But Vehemence does have his aggro aura, to change natural behaviour.
They are even present in surprising non-tropical waters. It was long thought that the Mediterranean was shark-free, for instance. But they teem in its waters. We were simply not aware of them because it is a breeding, rather than feeding, ground.
But, of course, sharks can be imported anywhere, with a sharknado!
Implanting a bomb was in that same anime too…
The problem is, V is still getting used to his current level of power. With that said, between getting his throat punched (pain, shock, and the panic that usually happens when you can’t breathe) and the panic/fear of being drowned, it would take a really mentally tough person to calm down enough to be able to focus/concentrate on being able to sustain oneself with energy instead of air.
He was probably breathing pretty heavily before the throat punch, so that would aggravate the stress/panic of not being able to breathe. For someone probably untrained at holding one’s breath, I would be surprised if V would be capable of coherent thought after 20-30 seconds or so. After that, blind panic.
Choking him and drowning him may seem redundant but Sydney will explain later some of the things you brought up were incorporated into her idea.
and hopfuu;ly we find out what she had in mind before the light hook appeared on wrong side of the shield.
It could be that Sydney wanted to start choking V with her lighthook, IF it could’ve appeared inside the shield. But getting Dabbler to jump-rope was a good improvisation…V got choked with distraction, regardless that he probably started breathing more heavily.
;)
Or did it? The key to letting Max get that hit on V wasn’t the lighthook, or even the shield blocking the rage aura. It was the distraction of a succubus jumping rope in a barely-adequate bodice, providing the opening for Jiggawatt to zap in with her darkning. And that distraction required the lighthook to be outside the shield with Dabbler.
But if V knew that the lighthook was only ever meant as distraction, he’d have been forewarned, hence the ‘disappointment’ when it popped up on the ‘wrong’ side. A distraction, for a distraction, for a diversion, for the main attack!
Reinforcing, increasing or augmenting the natural functions of his body seems to be how his body most naturally uses his vehemic energy. Maybe it wouldn’t take massive amounts of concentration for his body to switch to feeding more directly on it. Maybe if absorbing and storing vehemic energy is a natural function of his power (I think he described himself as a “innate” vehemic user at one point) his desperate body might take matters into its own cellular little hands. Not sure if living directly off of it like that would be great for him as a rational being…
DOGPILE ON THE RABBIT!!!
Lol I can picture Sydney jumping up and down on top singing that ala Bus Bunny!
*Cloud of dust and water vapor forms with smacking sounds coming from inside*
*A glowing door opens in the bottom of the cloud and a shrunken Bugs Vehemence slides out*
Bugs V: *munching a carrot V looks at the “camera” and gestures back at the cloud with the carrot* “Violent ain’t it? Welp, none of this gets me to Brazil. Now if I back track to Albuquerque…” *opens another glowing hole and jumps in*
Albuquerque is a multi-dimensional nexus right?
more of a geographical oddity. a right turn from everyplace.
Oh, don’t go all wibbly-wobbly on us…
Actually based on the geography of the region, I’d surmise that Grrl Power takes place in New Mexico, quite possibly in Albuquerque.
Or maybe Texas. Although I have only seen it from the air and airports, other than on TV.
But the fact that several Texas residents find the similarities to be very strong lends credence to that. Plus DaveB has some native advantages in setting it there.
However, unless things have changed whilst I have been distracted elsewhere, I don’t think it has officially been set in any particular real world spot.
Probably not London, anyhow, I would recognise any landmarks there. And their accents are wrong for that.
Well, its close to their base, relatively speaking, and they work for the U.S. government soooo they are probably somewhere in Los Estados Unidos.
I’m not sure that Sydney saw Stalwart’s mass effect stunt earlier. If so, she should have sent him in first to ‘space shuttle’ Vehemence to the ground.
I just checked previous pages for the ripped pants of the guy standing on V’s head. It IS Stalwart. Damn, Sydney’s good.
Thanks for the page.
I did not see that coming and I love when that happens.
I can’t wait to find out what happens next, even though I have to wait.
[C’mon future self, hurry up with that time machine.]
Sorry my future self has already killed yours and taken the time machine.
He better not have anything up his sleeve … I can definitely do with not seeing vehemence again for a long, long, long, long, long, long time.
What sleeve? He took his shirt off before he started fighting the heroes…
I dunno – he manifested appropriate pants and an arm out of nothing. I could see someone incorporating hidden compartments and functions within a magically constructed replacement arm. Why settle for simply stronger when you have the opportunity to make something to your personal specifications?
He’s gonna pull gills out of his pants. =D
According to the varied expressions displayed earlier, I think most of the Grrls (Dabbler, at least, not included) have seen enough of what V can pull out of his pants…
And given their reaction, he can probably hide a set of gills somewhere in all that junk (pun intended). o.0
I don’t think he does Dave said on his stream the other day the fights only one or two more pages.
So most of these attackers are gonna be able to wriggle out on “acting under the influence of mind control” defenses, right? A lawyer would have to be very bad not to spin that one into freedom, or even government compensation if they’re really good.
Ohh a class action lawsuit, the parasites will be lining up around the block to make a name for themselves.
And because of V’s use of “mental coercion” all of those lawsuits will land on top of him…almost as quickly as all these heroes & villains are doing now.
;)
Nope, they weren’t under V’s influence until WELL AFTER the fight started. The best they could pull is a Rioting Charge instead of Attempted Murder.
can you prove that can you prove that it court. because all i can prove is mind control was used and you bet someone gonna try to plead mind control
In what way can you prove mind control. The only one who saw the aura was Sydney. If we assume that Vehemence will admit he used an “Aura” to encourage violence he will also likely admit he did it at the end of the fight.
ummm the car park full of press fighting for no good reason. for a start.
Which would provide a perfect record of at what point was Mind Control used. (Speaking of which, WHAT HAPPENED TO GWEN,LEON,ZEPH,and PEGGY?!)
The same field that was keeping them hidden from view might have also been protecting them? Or maybe the field was literally only at ‘ground level’ meaning that they, being at an elevated position, would be safe?
Peggy was probably out of range. The others may have been involved in the brawl.
He has shown one form of magical mental coercion- it can easily be assumed there were other forms he was able to use, and unless ARC’s magic users immediately started scanning for mental manipulation auras as soon as enemies showed up, and could corroborate that data with the violence aura that happened afterwards (and considering the aura, unless they were well shielded, they probably dropped/stopped any scans they had anyways).
You gotta remember, Court is different than the real world- every word has a single, specific definition (right only means the direction, not whether they’re correct or not- you use correct for that meaning- that sort of thing) and there’s very specific conditions for what evidence is allowed or not, how you need to corroborate or define time periods for said evidence, etc. etc.
In this case I fairly certain that it’s up to the defense attorney to prove that they were under the influence of mind control from the start, and not the DA to disprove it. Besides since it seems that they had some data from before on some of them (like Vekter) so they most likely have behavior data and can show that their actions before the aggro aura was in line with their “normal” one.
All that is necessary is for the defence to implant the shadow of a doubt in the minds of the jury. Unless the prosecution can dispel it, by proving that he did not mind control them from the outset, then the defendants have a very strong argument, that could indeed lead to aquittal.
That would not necessarily lead to any compensation from the state, either directly or via court action. For that to happen, it would be necessary to show that it was negligent or acting contrary to the law.
Provided the representative individuals involved can be shown to have adhered to the correct principles, whilst taking into account the extraordinary circumstances, and that they acted in good faith, according to the knowledge available to them at the time, then they, and the organisations/government they represent, were not at fault.
In which case the acquitted villains could only seek recompense from Vehemence. Or his estate.
Can you prove that they are in mind control? Plus I’m sure V would tell the truth.
V has a rage aura, granted, but proving he has actual mind control without his cooperation is highly unlikely. The defense can’t expect to establish reasonable doubt in the minds of a jury unless they have something to base this claim on (unless this goes to trial in California – they seem to run a bit more credulous).
And the prosecution has a decent shot at putting that speculation away: “If V has mind control, and his powers feed on violence, then he should be causing random acts of violence wherever he goes as a standard behavior. Does my colleague have any proof this has been happening? You don’t?! Move to strike as speculation, your honor!”
Do you remember the hairstylist who said he had no idea why he was there or why he was fighting? That’s an indication that V was already using his aura at that point.
Still, if we’re talking about a criminal trial, then we’re talking also about reasonable doubt. It’s reasonable to assume that if V has an aura that makes people fight, that he could have been using it in the beginning just to get the ball running, even if you can’t prove that he did. Because all you need is a shadow of a reasonable doubt to get off on the charges.
If we’re talking about a civil case, then we’re talking about preponderance of evidence. The preponderance of evidence is that V orchestrated the whole thing and manipulated everyone into fighting so he could get his rocks off.
Either way I don’t see V’s impromptu army of munchkins being held responsible for their actions.
I reckon the hairstylist was a bystander who got pulled in …
No, he came because of peer pressure. He said it himself, a few of his superpowered friends were coming and convinced him to come along.
I’m sure someone will try this, whether or not we have a courtroom scene. BUT! while mind control was clearly used later, Arc has a perfect defense lined up against it being used from the beginning; Mr. Stylist surrendered early(ish) during the fight, and so was clearly able to exercise free will. Even if V used mind control to start the fight, any of them could have chosen to surrender once they were free of it. It isn’t ironclad, but the prosecution will probably be led by Arianna, so good enough I’d expect.
Ditto for Hex running away.
You make a reasonable case. But there are strong counter-arguments that can be deployed. For example the data set is too small to show that mind control can be overcome by simple will. Unless a study can be conducted to prove what you suggest, then it is reasonable to contend that, whilst some people may be able to resist, others may not.
This can actually be supported by studies made on the effects of hypnotism. There are some people who are highly suggestible, whereas others are highly resistant. Despite the fact that any study in this area is contentious, there is enough evidence to reinforce any arguments seeking to implant reasonable doubt.
Beyond that there is also the ability to fall back on arguments of diminished responsibility. As we cannot prove how strong the influence was on each individual, all we can say is that they were not acting wholly on their own initiative. As such, each individual could present a defence if their current actions are not in accordance with their past behaviour.
And even those who had unfavourable records could claim that they had reformed and only the mind control tipped them over the edge into reverting to past behaviour. Without it, they may have been able to walk away from the temptation. But that tipping factor was not within their control, and therefore they are not at fault.
I would not like to be the one trying to prosecute this case. The defence holds far too many cards.
One other point has just struck me. ‘Villans’ are now helping the cops. After the mind-control has been blocked. This is a massive argument that the defence can use to say that their prior actions were wholly due to mind-control, rather than being of their own volition.
Provided the jury can be convinced to look at this objectively (ie ignoring the actions and only questioning the root cause of the actions), I think it would be very hard to successfully prosecute many of the individuals, for the crimes that they appear to have committed. Assuming parity of competence, and available resources, of the respective legal teams.
It will certainly help any of this bunch who have no prior record to gain a suspended sentence. Making the job of confining them simpler as well. The actual criminals will have more problems including prior warrants. They might not get nailed for tonight’s wild party but that bank job 6 months ago.
But the prosecution would point out that they only switched sides after a) losing the fight and b) being betrayed by Vehemence. There was no mind control operating (as far as anyone can tell) when Atomic Bombshell tried to blow Maxima to pieces, when Heavenly Sword aimed to impale Dabbler, etc. – and I think a lot of people (including impartial bystanders, such as Suzie News) could testify to the timing of the Aggro Aura.
Still, lots for the legal minds to chew on. For example, would Zephan (magic expert) be called as an expert witness? And would killing Dabbler count as murder?
arguments made for a direct push one on one with some recruits for the brawl used before they even arrived not aura form which was a general effect on all used when he had lots more v-energy to use in generating the aggression
They can only call Zephan if they know of his existence. And he may not be keen on advertising his capabilities to the world. Nor would Dabbler want to be put on the witness stand for testimony, which might push her into revealing things which she does not feel humans are ready to know. She has sufficient resources at her disposal to ensure that such will never happen, unless she is willing.
Beyond that (or similar, such as the junior witch, on staff), there is only the testimony of non-expert witnesses to go on. And who amongst us can even testify what any other normal person is thinking? Let alone to how much of a degree that thought process is being influenced by malign outside forces.
You might end up with a few psychiatrists or members of various clergy chipping in their opinions. But will they convince a jury that they know the inner workings of mental super powers? I doubt it.
In which case reasonable doubt remains, and the defendants should be acquitted. Of course, if a genuine expert is available, then what we see here becomes irrelevant. If they can prove their credentials convincingly, then whatever conclusions they draw from their investigation becomes highly compelling evidence.
If that should be Zephan, as you suggest, then his resources may well be able to pin-point exactly when such mind control powers were being used, both before and during the battle, as may be the case. Which eliminates the guess work. All the judge and jury need decide is if they believe his credentials, the fact that magic is actually real, and that the conclusions he draws are actually sound.
And if he says that the mind control was established before they even set foot in the complex, the defendants go free. If he says that it was only influencing behaviour though and/or that it only happened at specific points in the battle, then it becomes much more of a judgement call as to how much was down to Vehemence, and how much responsibility each individual bears.
The latter kind of trial might go on for a very long time.
What Vehemence used was so much mind control, as using mental reinforcement.
Because as he stated at his intro he had rounded up all the malcontents he could find.
All most of them would have needed is a “push” in the direction Vehemence wanted them to go.
Now I could be argued that without the “push” supplied by Vehemence most if not all of the group would not have attacked ARC.
Here’s hoping for the team’s sake that his pants are permanently manifested, and won’t disappear into nothingness the moment he loses the power / concentration / consciousness to maintain them :p
Sydney already confirmed they are not illusions with the Truesight Orb.
But they are 40XL. If V returns to normal size as he loses power or consciousness he could fall out of them. How’s the brain bleach supply hold up?
I’ve ordered up a new supply of stock from the Brain Bleach ™ franchise for just that particular contingency…
;)
Bless you.
I has a camera and the Internet and I am not afraid to use them.
…widespread use of both of those could probably result in the increased sales of Brain Bleach™…
Thank you.
They become parachute pants and V does MC Hammer impressions?
Nah they are magic pants so they KA-shrink when needed and KA-grow as well. Normally such pants only come in purple…
“Stupid is as stupid does.” -Forest Gump’s Mama.
I’m still unclear why any of the bad guys (save possibly Hairstyle Brick, who seemed really nice but misguided, possibly mind controlled, and Mr. Misogyny there who Sydney goaded back in) would want to help. Are they pissed at V for using them? Do they think it will help them at sentencing?
Dude, I’d be out of there so fast that Pander, et al., would be upset because I gained another power… ;-)
Nobody likes their mind being fucked with
Running just adds resisting arrest to the list of offences (and puts you on the run as all law enforcement officials will distribute your picture as a suspect), while helping lawful authorities arrest the instigator of the riot looks really good when your defence is “Honestly, I was mind controlled”.
Luckily, Sydney didn’t lead with a “commuting your sentence” cliché.
V said that many of them weren’t straight, rob the bank, type criminals but thought of themselves as “anti-government”, anti-police, “nut job”, etc… so many of them could think of themselves as righteous warriors in a anti-whatever army whoms cause was betrayed by V’s quest for personal power. I could certainly see anybody described as a nut-job turning violently on him. Also he didn’t just use them as idiot fodder, on national television, he then went on to screw with their minds as violence puppets. Some of them seem to have some pride you know. Just got lucky that those are mostly the ones who are awake now I guess….
Wonder how PBS is doing.
I’m more questioning how they’re awake. Why they’re joining the dogpile is not the issue, given V used them.
Some of them were knocked unconscious and not yet rounded up for drugging I guess cause they were taking them down so fast there for a while and then ignored when the shit started to hit the fan with the mini-bosses? Then they were awakened, without drugs in their system, by Vehemence.
As for the rest. the drug monitoring cuff things were unlocked on all of them so no new drugs are being added to their blood stream (some supers must need re-dosing all too often and that’s why they made those things). Most of them went right back down again when the energy wasn’t propping them up. However, its not too much of a stretch that some of the supers have slightly super metabolisms and running around fighting under violence power might have reduced their sleepy time greatly. Perhaps they were behind the hedge silently sneaking away to escape notice, following the trail blazed by Hex/Budget Halo, when the ass that did this to them suddenly looked to be gong down. Perhaps Sydney asked Harem to give some of them a shot which is insane but then Sydney is the outside the box thinker and Harem… she seems really up for obeying Sydney. Probably thinks its fun.
Its also possible that some, like Boiler-Plate, had skin too tough to be penetrated by the cuffs / a syringe.
Perhaps. Not doubting that reasoning. Would be nice to see some of the villains like Boilerplate and Mithtah Nothe Boop coming to in the previous pages as opposed to the handful of villains we saw go back to sleep after the aggro aura was cut off.
I’m actually surprised that any of the bad guys except ‘Mach the Knife’ (or whatever his real name is) are even conscious. I thought there was some exposition about how they were all unconscious again.
it seems that the ideas people were going with all happened, just not the way they expected.
orbital toss
try? – checked
success? – countered
FF suffocation
FF? – checked
used for suffocation? – nope
suffocation? – checked (in another way)
ocean drowning
water? – checked
transportation to a big pool of water? – nope
drowning? – checked
sexy succubus
hentorb used on dabbler? – checked (partially)
nudity? – not quite
using DT as a shield?
this one don’t even have a right to work.
making fun of the villains? – checked
did i miss anything?
See below with “General Sydney” commanding some or all of the “Bad Guys” to attack V. I’m so proud! :D
Bind him up with lighthook – failed due to twisting free with increased strength.
Hold him in the air with the lighthook – Not tried, but would have failed due to anchor spell.
Blast him with PPO – Max got there first. Plus Dave does not want to make Sydney that vicious.
Shoot him in the head – Tried, limited effectiveness.
Power up Dabbler with massive orgy – Well, there is always the after-party.
“ideas people were going with” and preferably more popular ones.
who actually suggested to shot him?
and as for dabbler orgy, i noted “sexy succubus”
as for holding him in the air with the light hook – https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1559
Ack! Syd Vicious indeed.
Oooh! We haven’t seen them try to “violate” him yet for a hold. I know I wasn’t the only one… X-P
I don’t know how many others said it but the last time I saw it I was saying it so since so few of my hair brained theories come true so close to what I said I’m gonna go ahead and claim this as “I called it” in my happy comment some time back where I believed Vehemence’s wakey wakey violence wave would back fire on him by giving more super powered troops to “General” Sydney. (pig pile is close enough… ) *pats self on back*
They weren’t all regular criminals according to V. Some of them were just “Anti-Government”, chaos loving, oddball freedom fighters and other malcontents who could be aimed this direction (probably getting easier the more people had already joined the “army” going after ARC). If some of them think they are the “Good Guys” in their own heads then being betrayed, left for dead/arrested fodder, then being reanimated as true puppet fodder would have to switch a few of them over into righteous revenge mode on V.
Probably for the best most of them passed back out though…
He’s getting some juice from this and he already thought he had the minimum necessary to kill Maxima. She better keep coming with The Plan’s steps cause if they stopped here all he really needs is one good solid idea through the panic (or perhaps just beserk rage looking at his face… ) and he’s got tons of juice to shake them off with whatever he comes up with. Ka-Godzilla (Ka-Escape if he’s to be a recurring villain though I would rather he escapes elsewhere so our gals look good on TV at least)
Wow, Maxima’s totally on board. I thought she might have to be told not to blow his head up at this point. (might even have been humorous to see his face as her hands started glowing!) She isn’t nearly as blood thirsty or as die hard a soldier as folk used to think. (cause he really is still a terribly dangerous armed villain who is a clear and present danger to everybody present especially Maxima) Maxima must both have a strong faith in her very new acquaintance Sydney and a strong desire not to kill this guy. Cause killing him is still the safest route by far.
“Wow, Maxima’s totally on board. I thought she might have to be told not to blow his head up at this point.”
Well, I try to look at this from Maxima’s point of view. She’s pinned & committed to full defense because of Vehemence. Sydney & Dabbler’s distraction succeeded in causing Vehemence to loosen his grip on her throat (even though Max was “conflicted” by the nature of the distraction). Then Sydney gestures a fist-to-the-throat.
Tactically speaking, Max knows Sydney has a plan in motion & any good leader knows when to go with it, despite NOT being the one to think of the plan being used.
She knows Sydney has a plan to stop and maybe capture him, Sydney’s not really a premeditated killer (yet) and Maxima knows it at this point, but she knows she still has enough power to destroy his less protected parts. After all those warnings and the military thing I just thought maybe it was a bit more likely that she would blow his head off rather than take chances on the more public/Arianna friendly capture. But we are just getting to know Maxima and I guess now we know better.
A saying about sergeants in motion and lieutenants without ideas springs to mind. Perhaps slightly unfair on Max, but then she was rather preoccupied.
Now I wanna see this guy and Achilles bugging eachother, just for the fun factor.
But yeah, I can see where this is going, just keep blitzing and violence doesn’t matter, he can’t juice up fast enough to retaliate.
On the water main/pipe break: The only unreasonable part is that it HASN’T broken yet with all the abuse the parking lot took. Or potentially unreasonable part.
It was an act by the ‘Creator’. “And Sydney lifted up her Anvil and struck the ground and water came out abundantly for all the congregation”. In other words, the author is allowed to do what he wants.
Word of God; Word of Dave…As far as it goes with this comic, the two phrases can be treated as free interchange.
;)
Just because it isn’t squirting out of the ground doesn’t mean it isn’t broken. And as far as I remember it hasn’t really been that much “deep damage” to the ground that would make this possible, most of it has been surface level so to speak.
Has anyone noticed that the “Crystals” of V’s arm are now the same color as Jiggawatt’s Darkening?
It’s all Max’s fault because she broke one of them. They are like Christmas lights. If one bulb goes out the whole string goes dark.
Did we miss the vision mode where Sydney located the water line serendipitously located beneath his feet?
Don’t think it was shown, no. Don’t worry though, because you missed the scene in the Michael Bay movie where the orphans in the orphanage filed the place with dynamite before an errant bullet blew up the entire building.
It doesn’t have to be directly beneath his feet, he’s just at the bottom of the crater the water is flowing into. There was a water pipe in general vicinity of ground breaking destruction, which Sydney hoped for but couldn’t count on.
Hmm, I wonder if sydney will have dabbler flash freeze the water over his head to continue the lack of oxygen theme they have going on right now? Nah, probably not, thats a bit too murdery for her to try, unless she is sure he can break it by burning even more energy. I have to admit I was surprised to see what anvil’s role was in this, I was certain she was going to hold an end of the lighthook to absorb the kinetic energy of his escape attempts. I also wonder if getting even the bad guy bricks to jump on vehemence was part of the plan, or just a lucky side effect of them being pissed at him?
This is a reasonable assumption on sydneys part though. The violence needed to hold him down, versus the likely energy cost of keeping himself alive is probably the best tradeoff she could force. I fully expect the next comic to have a mention from the pin gallery that it seems to be getting easier to hold him down. Possibly we will even see him shrink back down to normalish human sized.
Just wanted to add, im pretty sure if this works, sydney just earned a nod to officer track training. I mean holy crap, she is directing this entire battle like a damn general! And everyone is listening to her! Sure its because her plan is a good one, but still, half these people at least are military, most are officers, all of them have way more experience, and yet here is sydney, taking charge and making it happen.
The mark of a good General is knowing when the Private has a GOOD Idea.
But Sydney isn’t even a private yet…The rank is not granted until training begins, so at this point, Sydney is still a Recruit. Sydney’s in that nebulous time frame that any other military recruit faces…that time between signing the Contract of Service at the MEPS Station but not yet transported to the training facilities.
She rendered a bunch of assists and blocking actions with the “Light Hook” building a strong sense of being a team member. Was instrumental in taking out PBS. Only Maxima even tried to resist her orders and then quickly took her “suggestion” in front of the troops making Sydney the Alpha of that confrontation. And this team hasn’t had a chance to train much as a unit maybe? So they don’t have the power structure and tactics of this group burned into their minds very well. (how many of them were military before this? Was Harem?) All these things probably give her a lot of cred when she’s yelling out plans so authoritatively. Though Harem seems like she would do it just for fun… Maxima is gonna have her work cut out for her getting Sydney’s head shrunk down from its current “general” state.
It would be funny later on to have Sydney yell out something odd and Sydneyesque during a stressful fight moment and everybody does it to great disaster to which Sydney says, “I…. didn’t actually think anybody would do it…. ” (she’s probably more used to exploding hilariously and nobody paying much heed to what she says other than to get a safe distance away! XD )
Dont forget, in addition to all her assists, she took out nega knuckles, lee press on claws, and some human torch knock off all by herself at the very least. She has DEFINITELY shown she belongs here. She isnt just some random idiot with obscene powers, she has shown she thinks fast, plans well, and moves decisively in a tough situation. Up till now the brass were kinda ambivalent on her being included, but willing to give her a chance. Now they can tell, out of combat hyperactivity aside, she is a real asset beyond her orbs of power.
Also, holy crap, it is just freaking insane to consider that all but the first like, 5 comics, have been dealing with the same day. This one day has been going on for YEARS. Its not even a full day, it started at around her lunch break. The fight happened at dinner time. Thats like, 8 hours or so worth of events spread out over 4 years worth of comics. I love this comic, i really do, but I dont think this level of in depth coverage will be sustainable long term.
This kind of time-format probably isn’t “designed” to be sustainable. Dave is still in the process of the “character introduction” stage for all of these characters. You gotta admit, there’s a lot of characters that need to be established before the REAL comic can truly get underway. There’s a whole world of super-powered people with background & history that needs to give the comic a proper context to other events that will be coming after this flashback is finished.
Partially the fact that DaveB is doing everything a store bought comic would do (as best he can) without the store bought team. One artist out to take on a whole world.
And partially its just been one of those days. ;D
The story is in the journey, not the destination.
Those things which happen in between the spoons are more interesting than the spoons. Because there are no spoons!
Precisely!
The story is ALL “journey” right up to the words “the end.”
“Maxima is gonna have her work cut out for her getting Sydney’s head shrunk down from its current “general” state.”
Well, if you look back to the story before the flashback started, in the panel where Anvil refers to Sydney as the “big guns,” check out Max’s expression. A few months after the fact, it seems Max is still trying to cope with it…
:D
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/60
I may not be an expert on military rank, but is going from recruit/trainee to Corporal in a few months a good indication of fast tracking?
And then, you know, slowed way down once we remember how she acts the other 90% of the time…
It happens, even in the real world military. Recruits that are on track for specific & specialized positions after they finish “boot camp” can often get into an A School for additional education & training for their specialty & can earn higher rank just by completing that course.
That’s how I rolled when I was in the Navy…Right out of boot camp, I went to A School for Ocean System Technician-Maintainer (also had a C School after that). I went from R-1 out of boot camp directly to PO3 right out of A School. I had the rank before I attended the C School.
Don’t forget the ability of a commanding officer to make a field promotion, especially under combat situations…
Field promotions are a bit ambiguous until the brass higher up the chain officially confirm it, but it is still valid for most practical purposes.
It also has a lot to do with the level of promotion, too. Getting promoted to cpl isn’t that high of a jump, so it’s entirely possible for it to happen at Max’s level. The other question is, how many rank levels is it to cpl in her ‘branch’. For Marines, it was PVT, PFC, Lance Cpl, the Cpl. Not sure how the other branches rank.
Ahh, but Maxima has reached her rank because she sees every aspect of the picture and she, quite rightly, has reservations. Tactical skill and command capability are indeed core officer skills. And some officers can get away with narrow skill sets that suit their speciality role.
However, that is in a big military, where each officer can be pigeon-hold into a particular position, which might suit the specialised skills. In this case though, it is a very small unit, which needs to be versatile enough to cover many situations. And anyone of officer rank needs to be flexible enough and with a broad enough skill set to respond to them all.
Plus officers are held to a much higher standard, so any lapse will be that much more critically viewed. As a private or corporal, the general public can accept that ‘allowances must be made, because supers are in short supply and we can overlook her eccentricities’.
Whereas, should she be elevated to being an officer, it means that Archon consider her to have all of the attributes necessary for that rank and will be held to account for all of her actions, all of the time. Weird specialists are tolerated in all fields. If they are very good at their job, and there are limited alternatives. But, until you get up to the top ranks within generals, the military hierarchy, media critics and politicians, do not have much acceptance of weirdness.
Plus, look at it from Sydney’s point of view. As one of the ranks, she can chill out, and have fun more often. As an officer, she would be stifled from acting in her preferred manner. She could not be silly or quirky. She would have to use formal manners and etiquette all the time, as the world’s eyes would be on her.
Not to mention the other downs that come with being an officer. Such as the occasions when you have to issue orders which you know will result in deaths of people under your command. And then having to explain that to their grieving widows and orphaned children.
I expect V has a few tricks left. I’m assuming his lines are an indicator of his current power level, and they are still red, so he’s about as powerful as he has ever been. Possibly more after Maxima’s uber punch which was about as violent as anything that’s happened so far. I expect he could make a blast to throw everyone off him. Or he could throw up an aura of agony or something.
Does drowning someone count as violence? I could also see a scenario where he hits an equilibrium where he is expending as much power to stay alive as he gets from the all the pain everyone is inflicting.
Now that the fight does seem to be wrapping up, I’m a little disappointing that Sydney didn’t use one of the unknown orbs. I kind of figured one would get used in desperation, and have a power that went reasonably well with the situation.
Her shield also seems to be deforming smoothly, which I don’t remember seeing before. It’s usually ellipsoidal when it’s just around her, but in the 4th panel it looks more spherical, and in the 3rd to last it looks like it’s more cylindrical.
Last but not least, Maxima does indeed appear to be exhausted, since she is still lying right there, and didn’t appear to be making much effort to move. Sydney should use the free end of the light hook to pick her up and drop her somewhere a little further away.
Actuall, I believe that’s Maxima’s boot on V’s face in panel 10. The black one with the studded straps.
You are correct, that does indeed appear to be her boot, so she is up and moving. I’m surprised though that she didn’t instantly put as much distance between her and V the moment she was free. I know this is probably all happening fairly fast, but delivering the uber punch should have left Maxima with the initiative, and then i’d have expected her to move away fast.
Oh well, it appears to have all worked out well enough anyway.
“show no fear!”
“terrorists cannot win.”
“kick him while he is down!”
there are some other things i could say.
point, she is a soldier (or was?). she doesn’t run away just because she had a “near death experience”, she helps the team when the help is needed.
+1
“Do the electric slide…”
Well, earlier in the fight, Maxima missed her first attempt to put her boot down of V’s other head but seems willing to accept having her boot on this head…
“Last but not least, Maxima does indeed appear to be exhausted, since she is still lying right there, and didn’t appear to be making much effort to move.”
She didn’t really have to start moving right away…In panel 2 when Anvil hit the deck, that looks like Max’s boot just to the left of the “Bwaboom,” indicating that the shockwave from Anvil’s impact got Max up & about, whether Max wanted to or not.
:P
That looks like Anvil’s boot. Look at the heel. It’s brown. Max’s boots have the standard black heel. I think Anvil might have landed fists first.
So :
Snug Sidney is sweet .
Sadly no more smiling from Vehemence , though he should be happy with all that violence centered on him …
But with Maxima maxxed out , why do they need help pinning him ? Is she down and out ? Anvil did destroy the ground she was on , while down ( minimized ) on armor .
Take no chances. At the very least, V is still close enough in strength that it won’t be feasible for her to pin him down alone anyways, plus who knows what other tricks he has up his… uh… pants. More muscle means greater chance to keep him down.
One wonders why the plan doesnt incorporate throwing him into orbit now that his feet are no longer anchored to the ground, since the ground has been destroyed.
They are worried about Ka-RocketPack? If we just go with what we’ve seen he can release walls of force now so in space he could probably do the equal and opposite reaction thing to get back.
But who knows really how many steps to this plan there are. That could be next. (though I wouldn’t recommend it)
That would be ka-razy.
V is proficient in both Ka-razy AND Ka-rate!
Take no chances. Knock him out, then toss him to space?
“Knock-Out” is just too unsafe (it’s a power-up for him).
They need him to be “Snuffed-Out” (=”Asphyxiated”) & bound while sleeping.
D’OH!!!?!
Wait – you don’t mean a VIOLENT knock-out, just a “make him to sleep”-type plan.
Sorry about that!
Please don’t make us deal with World War Vehemence.
That would be a long way off. We would need to have WWIII and WWIV before we had WWV.
I’m glad to see you get back to this comic, Yorp. Well-reasoned points & humor, sometimes obvious & sometimes subtle. Yep, we could always count on you…
*wags tail*
No, World War Vehemence comes after Planet Vehemence.
*Imagines a pair of twin baby V’s*
Y’know what? I’m all for it.
Burk him.
Why take the chance and give him plenty of time to come up with something while Maxima flies him up?
Thanks to air resistance, it’s effectively impossible to give an object enough energy at sea level for it to reach space
Thanks to the limits of our knowledge, and the fallacy of thinking that a simple equation holds sway over reality, it is surprising how often nature finds ways to do the ‘impossible’. Be it by some quantum trick that lies outside of our realm of understanding. Or by applying some principle which the equation writers failed to anticipate.
And that is without factoring super powers into the equation.
Unless I’m mistaken, that’s Maxima’s boot on Vehemence’s face in panel 10. Same as here, in fact 8-)
And I think the bare foot is probably Stalwart.
I don’t think you need to go all George Lukas and retro change Max’s comments about sewage. Having mentioned that would certainly be enough to lead Sydney to realize water mains are down there also. Plus sewer lines wouldn’t work for her plans anyway as they are not pressurized and they are usually deeper than the water lines. Easier/better to incude a “Sewer also means water lines” thought bubble into this page. The hydrant was a good idea too.
Yea, and Sydney’s not going to remember exactly what Maxima said all the time
Especially since it’s in a fuzzy “memory” panel not a flashback or something.
Heh! A flashback within a flashback.
If Dave’s not careful with that, he may wind up nesting his flashbacks as badly as we do in the comments…
;)
it does need to be changed, sewerage is sloooow, no pressure as a previous commentator said. We need a main water line nearby, not a piddly line to a house, but between water pumping stations.
Not to mention sewage would have to flow uphill to be present. When you hear about sewage in the street or above ground it’s usually due to rainwater or floodwaters pushing it out.
V fan personally….still, if the comic could move along I’d be happy.
There is more to life than fighting.
On side note, did anyone notice that for the first time he doesn’t seem nonchalant or with a cavalier attitude or even distressed but genuinely pissed!?
he got defeated by bouncy bounce.
also, its probably “i don’t deserve this, its not fair!!”.
yeah, getting jailed is totally not a fair price for attempted murder…
There’s a noose around his neck, and he’s being pinned down in a body of rapidly rising water. Personally I’d be freaking out
Exactly, freaking out is the correct answer.
Pissed is not.
Let’s see what Dave has for us in the next chapter.
I’m sure somebody would’ve helped if necessary, but I wonder what happened with Max… she was really close to the impact point
It’s kinda hard to see bit in the first panel there is some blurring suggesting she is making a rapid (flying) exit.
In Panel 10 you can see a black boot standing on Vehemence’s head. I think that’s Max her boot
I again did not expect something like drowning him with the water main.
Also…. I thought the rest of the villains were drugged again/unconscious when the aggro field went down.
enhanced physiology and everyone being too busy to reapply the drug?
AND a massive ground breaking impact.
Yes. Except Vehemence -just- said a couple of comics ago that with one fell swoop Sydney both cut off the aggro field and let the drugs in their systems re-render them all unconscious. He literally just said it a couple of webcomics ago.
ARGH double facepalm doesn’t cut it.
if someone has still the drug in them then yes.
but as i said, this guy is likely to have a super metabolism or something.
he might have sweated it out or something.
and with the time the drug was not being reapplied, even if its still there it might have been weakened. weakened JUST enough for him to be somewhat awake. + adrenaline?
Maybe the drug cuff got knocked off while he was fighting or something.
Well… all the drug cuffs were removed. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying that Vehemence himself said all the bad guys were re-rendered unconscious without his aggro field to sustain them. And a while ago, Harem said the drugs should keep even the ones with enhanced metabolism down for a few hours. And yet now you can see that there are several bad guys who are helping in the piling-on, including one who supposedly had his arm dislocated by Maxima :)
You know, for all the sarcasm (dude, scale it back a notch, no need to be rude…), you do have a good point. I went back and took a look at the villains who had been successfully drug-cuffed, and it actually does look like both Boilerplate and Mr. Nose Boop were not among them. Also not cuffed include Vector, Opal, Death Toll, and a couple others like the Granite woman and the Hair Stylist.
Assuming Death Toll is still out, that means literally all the ones I listed could become a factor in this. This actually means that your point brings up several questions for me. First and most importantly, WHAT ARE VECTOR AND OPAL DOING RIGHT NOW? Because it’s been established that the heroes who were downed had been given enough juice to get back up, there is every reason to think that those two, who I don’t think were collared, might be up to something. Vector MAY have been drug-cuffed when Harem checked on him, but it’s not certain.
Second to me, though, is the fact that this implies that some of those villains who might have had a higher metabolism might be discretely escaping. It’s a concern, and if they are part of any groups or organizations, their identities might not be in danger even if the press distributes their information.
It’s some things to consider.
if you look there
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1564
even the aggro aura could wake him up.
cant however guarantee, that the shock wave didn’t either.
in here:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1564
he is off-screen, and it doesn’t look like the tectonic uppercut thrown in the air, but he still might have been a bit shaken by it.
I actually wouldnt mind if the plan was to drown Vehemence in raw sewage. You know… since he’s full of crap anyway. :)
If it were a sewage line & he (even accidentally) swallowed any of it, he be even more full of crap than normal…
O.O
groan
he’s a smart gentleman brawler, he played his cards very well here.
Well he -was- trying to merde-er Maxima.
+1
if it was a sewage line, Sydney could have yelled, ” Eat crap and die!”
I really hope Vehemence DOESNT have some additional tricks, because he’s already been pulling new tricks and powers out of nowhere for most of the fight as it is and there has been like 4 or so pages in all where he has been on the receiving side and not ‘showing how awesome he is.’ It would be such a disappointing, ‘Sylar-you’ve-outlived-your-usefulness-to-the-story-two-seasons-ago’ letdown.
i believe he doesn’t need any NEW tricks.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1559
i am sure he has already shown one that may work.
Yes, yes, we know. You love Vehemence. We got it….
Actually you really should ask DaveB to rename the comic ‘Vehemence Unbound’ or something, featuring how Vehemence is awesome all the time and any time he’s down, it’s extremely temporary. The comic definitely isnt about Sydney or Archon or anything like that.
This is my sarcastic face. This is how I look when I’m sarcastic.
Funny…You’re avatar isn’t showing any signs of changing your expression…
;)
I still think tildes should be the sarcasm punctuation.
~because saying you’re being sarcastic every time is so much better~
“Tildes are already in widespread use to denote the originator of a quotation.”
~ Me
Come on Pander, you know he’s just going to teleport off the bottom of the pile and resume whupping everyone, just to annoy you!
Please don’t make me get an uncontrollable twitch in my eye thinking about that possibility. I’ve finally been happy the last two comics.
Personally, I keep hoping for complete and utter trope defiance: have Vehemence shake his head like a dog shaking off fleas (since, apparently, that’s what everyone- except Maxima- is when you’re at his power level), have him stand up and begin his next utterly boring and predictable archvillain monologue, then have him keel over stone dead as a tiny blood vessel in his brain ruptures from the excessive vehemic energy overload that he’s been supping on all night.
Frankly, I’m willing to bet that not a single person would be willing to claim that they seriously predicted that happening!
except that YOU just said it
Heh. I said it, but I’m not predicting it. Big difference.
ArcSWAT – Specialists Weirdos Aliens and Talents
Or substitute Supers, or Succubi, Technology, Techniques, etc.
for Dabbler, it’s Succubi; Weird Alien Technology
Supers, Weaponry, And Talents
Nice, maybe Supers, Weaponry, and Atypical Talents, as the word and is not normally (but sometimes is) included in acronyms and the word Atypical gets thrown around a bit in this comic.
Scratch what I just said, “atypical” is used as the A in “Arc”, my suggestion would have “atypical” used twice in “ArcSWAT” which would be redundant. Ignore me, I am not here.
Atypical Response Corps Homeland Operations Department
ARCHOD?
“Come, Son of Jor-El! Come and kneel before ARCHOD!”
…I’ll go cower in the corner now…
…Network?
I believe the classic SWAT is Special Weapons and Tactics, so yeah
Weaponry? Everybody’s got weaponry. The EPA, the Postal Inspection Service, even the Department of Education have armed officers.
I was always a fan of Appleseed’s ESWAT, Extra-Special Weapons and Tactics
lots of mouth to talk with so much teeth lacking uh?
A perfect example of the Overconfidence Disadvantage. “Get back here you coward! I’ll gnaw off your kneecaps!” etc.