Grrl Power #304 – A wild Harem appears!
It’s a little odd that Sydney agrees that “boy stuff” is dumb considering she’s a bit of a tomboy herself. I assume she’s thinking of stuff like talking about sports or cars or which actress they’d “do.” Sydney’s knowledge of sports talk starts and ends with “Did you see that ludicrous display last night?”
I almost had Olivia comment that she’d seen The Watchmen movie and was confused by it because even though it was a comic book movie, the only guy with obvious super powers was “the blue guy” and everyone else playing superhero just seemed like sociopaths in masks. That was kind of my reaction to the movie since I had never read The Watchmen before. I wasn’t confused by it mind you, I just think Moore was telling a story about people, not superheroes, and that most people are assholes no matter what they call themselves. Really the only character in that movie I identified with was Manhattan, cause he looked around the world and was was like “Welp, humans suck, I’m out.” The thing that did confuse me was that none of the people in costume had any powers, at least not in the movie, maybe except Ozymandias who could catch a bullet. I don’t recall how often, if at all, the word superhero was used in the movie (again, haven’t read the book) so maybe it’s my fault for thinking since the source material was a comic and there’s definitely one guy with powers, therefor anyone in a costume is a superhero/villain. They were vigilantes at best, and The Comedian was a straight up psychopath.
I decided to cut mention of the movie because it’s obviously a huge tangent that could go on for many pages. Still, dialog like that is fun to write, and especially if it’s a bunch of superheroes sitting around talking about superhero movies it seems extra appropriate for this comic, so maybe I’ll use it to lead in to another scene some day.
The book Olivia is holding is Sunstone, by Stjepan Šejić (no idea how to pronounce that). I hate to even mention 50 Shades of Grey in the same breath as this book, but the easiest way to describe it is “50 Shades of Gray, only not sucky BDSM Twighlight fanfic with all the vampires edited out.” That is to say it’s about two women that end up in a consensual bondagey Dom/Sub relationship with fantastic art and great writing and characters. So really except for the bondage element they’re nothing alike. Yeah forget I mentioned 50 SoG. A side note on Stjepan, if anyone is more prolific than Fred Perry, its him. In addition to being a professional comic artist who’s worked for Image, Marvel and others, he has two Deviant Art accounts, both of which are updated frequently. One is under the name Shiniez which is mostly NSFW, and you can find the entirety of Sunstone published there. (Obviously pick up the book to support him if you like what you see.) The other one is Nebezial where he posts other comic work and lots of funny vignettes about mostly DC characters but he draws everyone.
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I’ve actually started making the point that telleporters would scare the crap out of people since reading this comic.
Well, duh… it takes a lot of time (or being quite autistic) to get used to someone popping up right in front of you. My ex girlfriend is impossible to scare: she just doesn’t register things at the same speed that I do. So a sudden “BADGERS!” would result in her trying to back out ONLY if it’s about to hit her in the face. But other than that, she doesn’t even register it. It’s quite annoying to try and scare someone like that.
I would just usually throw something at people like that. Like a cat.
But if she is that much faster she might snag it mid-air and toss it back, claw ways.
Sydney threw something alright. A punch and a fit.
My dad is so quick and quiet, you’d swear he had the superpower of offscreen teleportation. You take your eyes off him for a moment, and he’s gone. And if you’ve got your back to the door, you can be damn sure he’ll sneak up on you without meaning to. It drives me nuts.
Heh… my Dad’s the same way. The rest of the family keeps joking about have to put a cat bell on him.
I have the problem that there are quite a few people whom I can easily, accidentally, sneak up *in front* of.
I get that reaction a lot as well. It’s not that I’m trying to sneak up on people, it’s just that I tend to be on the quiet side.
I get the same reaction from folks, and I just have to stare at them when they get spooked by me just walking up….How do you not notice someone who’s 6’8 and has the breadth of a refrigerator walking up/near you?
Are you sure that ‘not noticing’ factored into their reaction?
Oh come now, how could I be expected to let that one slide by?
I grew up where most of the house was on the 2nd floor and had a ‘thin’ (sound wise) wood floor. We got used to walking very quietly and I can accidentally sneak up on just about anyone.
I do to my friends they sometimes think I teleport right behind them
Yeah… I’ll echo what others have said, “Civil War” is no “Watchmen” or “Killing Joke.” Or “The Dark Knight Returns,” for that matter. It’s the difference between, um… nah, y’know, there’s too many analogies to choose from. Just take our word, Watchmen and the others really are fine art. Civil War’s… maybe it’s okay. It’s art, sure. But it ain’t that fine.
I think the point is it’s better than the the standard crappy to “OK” level fare. Maybe not the calibre of other things on the list but in a different league than a lot of things most people think of when they think superhero comics.
Sydney is probably a little more enthusiastic (less critical) of a lot of comics that most people.
Maxima would so hate the Killing Joke I’m betting. Somehow I don’t see her being a fan of any ‘Women in Refrigerators’ storyline.
But then Max would miss out on how Barbara recovered her life, if not her mobility. she would have missed Barbara getting trained by Richard Dragon himself in Escrima (stick fighting) even while still confined to a wheelchair. Max would have missed how Barb was able to use her skills in Library Sciences to conduct her internet research & develop better hacking skills, paving her way to become Oracle.
It may be true that “first impressions are the most lasting impressions,” but then that just means that it’s harder to let go of old bias.
On Watchmen. A point that was more evident in the comic than movie. Was that “Ozymandias” set things up to give the only people he considered to be friends, a scenario that was a few steps above what they had been used to before.
Rorschack and Night Owl had to stop a possible world-ending event. None of the things they’d gone up against before was world ending.
The fact that his plan was already too late to stop was beside the point. He got them out of the way, and gave them something to fight for again.
As for the scientists he killed. They were tools. Tools get put away/disposed of.
Doesn’t change the fact that Ozymandias was clearly the bad guy.
But, that was just my take on the comics
more like an anti-hero: did a great evil for the greater good
the two problem I see with Ozymandias’s plan are that it could potentially come tumbling down or even backfire katastrophically with Rorschachs diary (the chance is not big but it is there); and the big moral problem is that even if Ozy is the smartest guy in the world he is not omniscient, the cold war could easily have faded away on its own as it has in the real world without the need to massacre thousands of people as he did (but no one can be sure, what would have been)
Not COULD come down. WILL. As soon as the monster’s DNA is analyzed (and it will be) it will be obvious that someone engineered it, and it’s no more the vanguard for an extradimensional invasion force than a piece of GMO corn is. And who could have arranged such engineering?
I mean, really, Moore TELLS you it’s gonna come down, and not too long from now. Manhattan as much as tells him to his face, and the parallel comic book story of the pirate ship shows you what Ozymandias has become, and — really the most obvious part — the character’s NAME tells you that everything he is doing is doomed to failure and oblivion:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
He did a great evil while CONVINCING himself that it was for the greater good, that doesn’t mean it actually WAS for the greater good. He’s straight up villain using a villain’s justification (identical to Batman’s nemesis Guul who thinks for the greater good he needs to kill off most of Earth’s population and put himself in charge) for murdering many thousands of people.
It’s clearly ambiguous even within the book. “He’s right. All we did was fail to stop him from saving the world.”
Ozymandius didn’t kill the staff because they were tools, he did it because if they lived the plan failed. It may yet fail, due to Rorschach. Also he clearly feels that the deaths were a regrettable act, since he tried to describe his self-assigned penance to Jon who was beyond caring by that point.
I’ll stop there however since debating the nature of good and evil on the internet is rarely a profitable endevour.
That’s one thing I like about some comic books. They can have so many interpretations.
See two pages ago, panel 4
Yep. That establishes that live feed is likely going on, as reporters are doing their ‘piece to camera’. And they might well have followed it up with “and lets turn to our roving cameraman to see what things are looking like inside the store”.
And, checking out the previous page, we can see that there is a camera crew in here. So Harem could have either used the outside broadcast image to teleport in (using the same technique as teleporting into the ambulance previously). Or she could have waited until they switched to live feed from inside the shop.
Or Arc Light/Dark might have already set up monitoring devices around the store.
You clucky duck.
I would just second the recomendation of Sunstone, and mention that Dave isnt quite doing the art full justice.
And the story is also kinda sweet.
Sunstone, Why sir did you get me hooked on another comic, I have finals coming up in a week, I did not need yet another distraction. No matter how good it is…
It’s short, maybe 30min of reading. And yes, it’s very sweet.
Regarding pronunciation of Stjepan Šejić: the ‘j’s should be considered ‘y’s, the ‘Š’ is probably a ‘sh’ sound and the ‘ć’ is a ‘ch’ sound. Probably, it varies and I don’t know what country Mr Šejić is from. Emphasis is on the e in Stjepan and the ić in Šejić.
Does Harem have no manners at all? It seems rude to just “vorp” in to a store like that. And has she ever been there? No, I don’t think so…
…
So that means she arrived there, was looking through the window, decided “fuck doors,” and “vorped” in. I can understand avoiding lines, but clearly that was on purpose XD
I mean the jump scare was on purpose. BOO!
She could have used other means to spot the inside of the store, video for example as I’m sure the events inside that store are already on a morning newscast and probably the internet already. After all, there are several news crews and a least 1 video crew, probably more, already there. Probably pegged her as the easiest of the unveiled supers to get to being that she has a local store. Since her real name was used, it was probably very easy for them to find out which business she works at/owns and where its at.
Harem has a sense of humor that has already gotten her in trouble twice. For the same joke. Angry Maxima. Plus the next two for the full effect. Angry Heatwave. Plus the next one for a sticky situation. She goes for the funny without thinking that not everyone will be amused.
Saying that Sunstone and 50 shades of grey even share bondage as a common theme is stretching it. 50 shades portrays the stereotype of bondage: hitting, demoralizing, talking down to, etc. Simply put, it’s vile and misleading. Sunstone however is a much more realistic depiction of the bdsm. They show the good use of a safe word, the use of after care [pretty much the bdsm equivalent of post-coitus cuddling], as well as the importance of communication and respect.
I personally would never even suggest that Sunstone and 50 shades have anything in common. It’s the difference between two consenting adults and someone coercing someone into sex.
Other people are welcome to their opinions but for me:
Watchmen > Killing Joke > … > … > … > … > Civil War.
Is the paper floating in the panel before Harem shows up?
Nope, in the previous panel Sydney is in the process of giving out an autograph. . For a slight surcharge, we’re sure.
Now Harem just has to see said paper and complete it as ‘the mighty Harem’
I think they meant when Sydney was signing it, it didn’t look like it was being held or anything, like it was floating in midair while she signed it.
Civil War almost single-handedly made me drop collecting Marvel comics after a 25+ year habit. Not only is it not comprable to Watchmen and Killing Joke, it’s not even comprable to any random issue of Spider-Man. While it’s an interesting premise, it was poorly thought-out (having read the initial outline), forced characters into acting wildly out of character, and was poorly executed. Seriously, because of Civil War, I went from spending around $75-$100 a month on Marvel titles to $3 a month. And that last title got dropped less than a year later.
I totally agree, and from my understanding, so does most of the comic community. Civil War is not so much famous as it is infamous for the lack of thought, planning, and even a passing understanding of the motivations of the characters involved.
In short: It was terrible.
Ditto, the only Marvel title I read now is Squirrel Girl.
*ears twitch*
*sniffs suspiciously at the girl*
*settles down to nap, but with one eye half open*
Careful Yorp. She’s the most powerful being in the Marvel Universe.
Ahh, but she has not turned to evil. Even overwhelming power can be overcome, if you know how. But, so long as she is not an Evil Squirrel Overlord, I need not stir myself.
I’m having flashbacks to working in a comics shop.
Halo needs to practice signing her autographs using the tentacle.
I wonder if she could produce multi-tentacles, each holding a pen and signing at the same time?
Yeah, I didn’t need that mental image after having read all of Sunstone in a single sitting. Now I’m imagining Sydney in dom gear punishing Harem -.-. Thanks.
Ohh Dave…
+1
Because she is bad, and needs to be punished!
It sounds like someone has an idea for Dave’s next vote incentive…
Sydney cosplaying the Black Queen from X-Men looking miffed.. Xuriel rolling on the floor pointing and laughing with tears falling from her eyes.
Heh, of course, Olivia. You just happen to have not have heard about the superhero fight, and you just happen to have had enough casual contact with the newbie to get her to trust you enough to display her thus far unknown powers for you. Call me crazy but I smell an Aizen here. My WMG is that Olivia actually made the orbs, has tracked them to Syds, and is now probing to see how much of their power Sydney has unlocked.
Interesting theory. Presumably Olivia then decides that she has insufficient information to go by, and has to stay on Earth for several months, under cover as Olivia. Keeping in close contact with the orb wielder, by joining her role-playing group.
Clearly she must be unfamiliar with TV, not to have already seen the orbs being demonstrated. We should monitor her behaviour to see if she displays any other gaps in her knowledge, that will mark her as not being from around here.
Nah, Olivia just has the hots for Sydney, duh! She’s even reading an LGBT themed comic right in front of her. :D
I’ll leave the ladies to field that one.
“Clearly she must be unfamiliar with TV…”
Or, more suspiciously, she might be merely lying about not having seen TV last night…Deliberate misdirection.
Perhaps Olivia had been trying to track down who took the orbs from the Florida Keys, but only got so far as tracing them down to the right city so far; perhaps her method of tracking them down doesn’t have the capability of pin-pointing any exact location, but only within a general area. It may have been coincidence that Olivia showed up at the comics shop yesterday (she first came in only because her half-brother/cousin happened to go there), before the big Archon reveal.
But if Olivia is lying about having not watched TV last night, then it doesn’t really seem so far-fetched that her initial attitude today has been so low-key about Sydney’s orbs hovering.
Maybe this ties in with Joel being a man in black. His mission might be to protect her from this extra-terrestrial menace?
Come to think of it, this line of reasoning could even explain Halo herself! She would clearly be an alien princess, secreted on Earth, to keep her safe from Galactic politics. Who got drawn to the orbs through her alien heritage!
Perhaps this gives us some insight into Sydney’s dad?
I kinda wonder…Did Sydney’s parents ever meet (some of) Dabbler’s parents at any time?…
Thank you for boosting Sunstone! Got to be one of the best webcomics of it’s type out there. Love Grrl Power, just wish the sorry moved a little faster. Oh and Book two will be out in May! :)
Man, I am glad I did not start a book on that. We went well beyond my guestimate on the first “it’s too slow paced” comment!
Sunstone … Thought that sounded familiar, been reading it since before book one was finished, definitely a good read
I’ve been thinking about Halo’s current superpower situation.
It must be nice to be suddenly be able to get your balls out instead of keeping them hidden away for fear of what might happen…
… He said, completely innocently.
It’s very nice, but people usually react very different when you pull your balls out
Sydney jail for you.
Sydney’s case would be quite a bit different than yours (or mine), for example…After all, Sydney’s balls were openly broadcast on TV twice during the same day.
Some of us can display our balls in public, with neither shame nor legal repercussions.
That’s how the phrase “lucky dog” got invented…
That girl on the last two panels. Her face seems familiar.
Is that the girl, that will win Halo cospley competition?
I don’t think so. Longer hair, different nose and glasses.
https://davebarrack.deviantart.com/art/Halo-Lookalike-Contest-431780929
suspiciously significant girl is suspiciously significant
\Stjepan Šejić is a mutant, yeah, I don’t know how he produces so much art.
[MickyDolenz]
Don’t do that!
[/MickyDolenz]
I would love to see the whole crew show up in that ship, man what would be awsome! Can you imagine the hallabaloo?
Shop… i really widh you could edit stuff.
I think a lot of people are already shipping Max and Dabbler. You want to ‘ship’ the whole crew? That would indeed be awesome.
+1³
None of the three stories Sydney mentions strikes me as a good place to start. They’re all very much about reinterpretation of existing properties, and targeted to people who already read superheroes. Well, maybe not Civil War. Whatever they were thinking there, it was probably wrong.
Watchmen is more of a parody, though. One of its jokes is that in a world of costumed crimefighters, only one has powers, and the others try to get him to be a superhero when he doesn’t really want to be. It’s not really an introduction to superheroes so much as an attempt at deconstruction.
Civil War was a strange change in Marvel’s editorial direction, I thought, but that’s part of an old argument about the character and themes of their comics. I prefer treating the Marvel heroes as a (kind of optimistic) part of the world outside our window, but the editors apparently decided to extend the dystopian horror of the X-Men to the Avengers as well.
A Killing Joke is, and reads like, Batman fanfic. Apparently that’s what it was written to be, and as I’ve become more familiar with online female fandom, the more stereotypically fanficcy it seems. The central relationship is between the two male antagonists, it has a long digression with the sexualized humiliation of a male character by another male character, and the main female character is reduced from superhero to supporting cast. It’s a deeply misogynist work, but I think it’s insulting to men as well in its fetishization of men as sex objects.
I can’t disagree. Those are a bit heady to start with. That said Civil War was not that strange a direction. It not that far from the Mutant Registration Act they kept trying to slip into the X-Men for years, It was also coming off of World War Hulk.
It was also likely editorial comment on the war on terror now that I think about it.
Actually World War Hulk came between Civil War and Secret Invasion, during the period where Tony Stark was running SHIELD etc. Hulk had already been fired into space prior to Civil War but he didn’t come back until afterwards, having been busy with the Planet Hulk storyline.
Because I can’t find anybody who’s explained it yet, Ozymandias is just a supergenius. He could “catch” a bullet because he has enough knowledge of psychology and reading body language to predict exactly where and when the person would shoot. He could get his hand in the way before gun actually fired, but he doesn’t have superspeed. I don’t know about the movie, but in the comic it actually shot his hand, which is obviously better than dying, and it was more clear that he himself wasn’t sure if that was going to work, it was more of a last-ditch kind of thing.
Sunstone’s a good one, as long as you have no objection to lesbian erotica.
Another one I’ve been reading is IDW’s two current Transformers series – More Than Meets The Eye and Robots In Disguise. I’d say the best parts are the two arcs in MTMTE about Ratchet and Pharma, but there’s a lot of good storytelling and interesting worldbuilding to go around.
On Watchmen: The character I related to the most was Rorschach. I liked him because despite all his flaws, he was a good man, injured, but never corrupted.
Harem has to get in on some of that reporter action…
Are the reporters rolling live? I can’t imagine she’d be able to just vorp in there like that otherwise, considering the established limitations of her teleport. I mean, there were several pages and an entire Dabbler’s Science Corner devoted to it!
There is a camera rolling outside, we saw the feed. And there is at least one camera crew present inside. So one way, or another, continuity is fine. Best case she could see her arrival spot live. Worst case she did exactly the same as with the ambulance scene.
i.e. See the outside transmission, and say “I want to teleport into there”. Her power is flexible enough to be able to handle the last bit safely.
I find Harem’s power limitations to be interestingly thought out. They allow certain aspects of teleportation to be explored. Such as being able to keep the unit in resupply. But without the plot-busting problems that unrestricted teleport can induce.
So long as a hero is able to open up a pip-boy or goggle transmission link to Archon, Harem will be able to join a teammate. I imagine that Archon has an override option built into those devices, to allow them to turn them on remotely. So anytime it is convenient Harem can do her thing.
When it is not, there simply is no cellphone or Archon communicator signal.
Mind you, if a spy satellite can be re-purposed, she can get an eyeball on practically any surface location. Although cloud cover might prohibit that. But, if she can get to the area, Harem can bypass any locked doors by teleporting beyond them.
Which may not be the safest thing for a squishy to be doing, if there is a hostile force in the vicinity.
So her powers have checks and balances. They are very useful. But not all-powerful.
Just seeing the television feed wouldn’t be enough, though. She has to already be familiar with that area and know where it is. The problem here is that this is early in the morning, the cameras are unlikely to be live. It’s more likely they’re hanging out, getting footage, and they’re going to splice it together for a night time report.
Unless of course all of this is so ground shaking that nobody is running the regularly scheduled programs.
Which of course brings me to something else. In the beginning of the comic, before Sydney went on the bank run, she and Joel had a conversation about the existence of supers. Apparently supers were already known to exist to the general public to the degree that there’s a guy who flies that might get his own reality show… So… this level of 9/11 all the regularily scheduled shows stop to show live press coverage is rather nonsense. It shouldn’t be that shocking.
I disagree.*
I agree.
If Harem just saw footage, with no way of contextualising it, she could not direct her power apporopriately. But if she saw feed which she know to be from the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, she could teleport there. Even if she has never been to France.
Provided it happens to be within her range limitations, of course. Maybe she could only reach the Las Vegas Eiffel Tower?
* It is not to be confused with the fact that ,if Harem is very familiar with an area, she does not need to see it to teleport there.
Except that she said the only reason she was able to teleport into the ambulance is because she already knew the area and could get a good estimate of where to teleport to, based on the news feed. It was not something that could just happen simply because it was on the television.
Contextualising the area is important, yes. So seeing footage of a high-speed chase, on a nondescript highway, would not allow her to just jump into the scene. But if it passes a distinctive sign-post, where Harem, looking on a map can say “aha, I now know exactly where they are” then she can.
I do not, personally speaking, think it would be necessary for her to be a regular commuter, on that route, to be able to do that. She can combine her knowledge of how the map relates to the real world, with the pin-point clues she has picked up from the live feed, to give her super-power enough information to go on.
You are perfectly correct to point out that there is a difference to our world, in that regard. However I do not think that it is as clear cut as you are portraying.
Emphasis added. Super heroes are a new thing still. They are not saturating the airwaves yet.
Yesterday a new arm of the military was unveiled, staffed by super heroes. On top of which, they have been granted the right to act as police. This is not a trivial thing. it is absolutely massive!
On top of which, last night, there was a huge super hero battle, captured live on TV. And not just anywhere. It was in the kind of commercial area that we are all familiar with, and use on a day-to-day basis. That really brings it home to people.
In my opinion, DaveB is being very realistic in his portrayal of how society might react to these circumstances. Further, I think we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg here. But that is fair enough, we are experiencing things from Sydney’s point of view. And she is not sitting glued to the TV, getting feedback from the shockwaves rippling through all levels of society, around the globe.
Ah, Killing Joke, my respect for this web comic and Sydney have sky-rocketed further. There should be a Joker-like quality villain in the near future or does anyone think Vehemence covers that area?
Vehemence’s defining characteristic is that he is Sydney’s formative villain. Shadow Boxer was the first one she defeated, but he was just a super-powered thug. Spider Man similarly had a thug involved in his origin story. But his formative villain* was the Green Goblin. Likewise I picture Joker in that role for Batman.
The big difference though is that we do not know yet what the future will bring for Sydney and Vehemence. He is powerful enough that it may not be possible to contain him indefinitely. So possibly he will become as much of a recurring villain as those (or the Green Goblin’s son, as the case may be).
Hopefully Archon, and the US penal system, will not operate a revolving door policy for their super criminals.
* As best I recall, which is only going to be a loose approximation of what may be the actual sequence of who faced whom, when. And doubtless there are multiple different ways these have been handled in reboots.
in all spider man origins, he becomes Spider-Man due to the loss of his uncle. after that he tries to exact revenge but somewhere along the line a villain comes by to force him to his true calling of fighting evil in all forms not just for the sake of a personal vendetta. depending on the spideyverse the villain that he faces ranges from green goblin to the lizard to doctor octopus and a dozen other low profile re-occurring villains. those 3 are the main ones that are hell bent on making their own goals come through regardless of who gets caught in the crossfire which forces spider man to act as the hero. in some cases he enjoys helping others, others he would rather be rid of his powers completely but still helps because of his uncle’s memory. in all cases spider man is the hero because of the sacrifices he makes to ensure the ordinary people can live a prosperous life.
I thought Doc Oc was Spider-Man’s formative villain, seeing as he was the first villain to defeat Spider-Man. He also became the Superior Spider-Man, too.
I do admit that when you think of close rivals, though, Osborne is the essential Spider-Man villain.
For me two of the super heroes in “The Incredibles” were Buddy Pine aka “Syndrome” because of his mechanical genius, and Edna Mode with her scientific and artistic abilities combined to create super suits for the supers that fit their powers. Makes her a materials scientist. The same with Batman and Tony Stark and many others. It is vigilantism unless certified by the host govt or UN.
For what it’s worth, there’s no “The” in “Watchmen”. The title’s just one word.
I have to ask…is the chick that got marker on her face in the last panel the same one Sydney scared the shit out of yesterday? she looks similar but with dark makeup, glasses and a hat to hide her hair…kinda like a cheap disguise.
Definitely not. Her smell is completely wrong. And there would be a handsome doggy by her side, if she was the one.
I think Halo is about to discover a more unique way to write her signature!
“I shall never wash my cheek again!”
Ok, IDK if it’s just me, but Sydney is absolutely adorable in the third panel.
who else kinda wished Halo sucker punched her like she did back in comic
sorry messed up the tag, comic 76
Wow, I already follow Nebeziel on DA lol~
i predict sydney will put harem in her bubble with her and give her a firm thrashing since harem won’t be able to teleport out of said bubble. i’m curious bout the effects of sydney’s orbs and harems teleporting/body splitting. so many questions…gotta ask em.
does being inside the shield cut her off from the other’s senses like sight and hearing?
will the ones outside the shield be getting input from the one inside in any way?
is the one inside the shield affected by the body storage of the other 4 if the ones outside are all combined into 1 body making it one body outside and one body inside?
if so can the others be teleported inside the shield if one is in there by the body splitting storage?
if not then can the one inside be teleported out of the shield? i know the shield prevents teleportation to its interior but is it one way or two way blockage?
these are good questions for daveb to think on for sydney’s training and group exercises. it’s always good to know how one person’s abilities affect the team’s effectiveness. if using her shield breaks up harem’s link on the battlefield then it’s going to cause trouble in a major fight. ok, that’s enough babbling from me (stupid ADHD) you don’t have to answer these questions at all but they still need to be mulled over and addressed. i am a great source of questions but a horrible source for answers. i will ask what others overlook and suggest things to help make things easier for the public but don’t ask me how to implement them because i have no clue. that’s what the design teams are there for, to implement and construct the asked for solutions…there goes my ADHD again…shutting up now.
Interesting question:
Given that magical effects do not penetrate the bubble shield, would a harem inside the shield be ‘cut-off’ from this others?
What would the consequences be?
The force field is permeable for communication purposes. Halo could hear her talking from outside, when she was fighting Shadow Boxer. The same would probably apply to Harem communicating with the rest of herself.
The storage thing could work either way. We have no indication that the body is stored in another specific body. Given that it can be teleported to any location, when she called it out, she may or may not be doing that at the moment. Doing trials with Halo’s shield would be a way for Harem to find out more about her own power.
If stored bodies are linked to a specific body, then they could only be recalled on the same side of the force field as that body happens to be. If 2 Harems happened to be inside the shield, when it was raised, either could store the other. But neither could summon any of the other 3 outside.
However it is possible that when stored the bodies go into a pocket dimension (or something similar) accessible by any other body. In which case, provided there was at least 1 Harem inside the shield, she could store any of the external ones and recall them on the inside. She would not be teleporting them through the shield, she would simply be teleporting them out of the pocket dimension (via herself).
Barring the last one. Assuming that Harem cannot store herself, only a copy.* And the storing power requires teleportation to use, so the Harem(s) on the inside of the shield could not perform the storing, of the final external copy, through the shield.
* If she can store herself, she better avoid ever getting into an arm-wrestling competition whilst drunk. Given that each copy she stores makes her stronger, she might drunkenly store one too many of herself and cease to exist!
“The force field is permeable for communication purposes.”
Here’s a likely scenario up for conjecture; If a super had the ability to ride radiowaves, like Airwave in DC Comics, they might be able to “teleport” into Sydney’s shield IF they could first piggyback on the signal carried by the pipboy she wears. I’d conjecture that a super with ARCSwat could do that easily since he or she would already have clear access to that specific kind of signal, but a super-villain would first have to find a way to “hack” into that secured wavelength.
But you could bet that if a villain did succeed in doing that, Leon would be all over the security parameters…But it would only be “after the fact.”
If by “herself” you mean the original (strawberry blonde), she went into storage during the Big Battle due to a broken wrist. So it seems all of them can be stored – except whichever happens to be the last one.
The hazard of un-porting the final copy could be explained away as paradoxical. There is one controlling mind. Any attempt to unmake the last copy would destroy that mind, so the process always fails.
For info, I do not think that the original Harem is anything special, other than having no tattoos. Possibly that may not be the case, and she might turn out to have some special status. But I do not see that there is any particular need for that.
“Herself” is interesting. “Myself” is easy for us to get our heads around when just dealing with single brained & single bodied types. But let’s step into Harem’s mind for a moment.
When dealing with anybody or anything else, the terminology remains easy, no matter what body I am in I remain “myself”. But, when I am looking at one of my other bodies I see it as “a copy of myself”. Even though, simultaneously, I am in that body seeing it as “myself”.
This is an essential mechanism for the brain to function and for anybody to be able to interact with the world. Regular humans can experience something similar if operating a remotely controlled device, and using it to look at themselves.
Without the aid of such a device, or a friend, ordinary people have difficulty scratching the small of their back. Not so with Harem though.
I can just get “one of my copies” to give “myself” a scratch on the back. Which, from that bodies point of view, I see as scratching “another of my bodies”. However the feeling is that of “scratching myself”. I am guiding my hand to the itch, and feeling the relief of it easing, directly where I am scratching.
Unlike a mono-mind, using a stick, or scratching up against a corner, it is not “something else” touching me. I can feel my fingers touching my flesh, so my mind is not treating it as foreign. I cannot tickle myself .
Likewise, if I cannot unteleport “myself”, I can only ever store “one of my copies”.
Sorry about making your back feel itchy. Let me see if I can help.[/lspoiler]
[spoiler]*uses paw to scratch your back*
I would think that the shield would block access to the storage pocket dimension, and therefore not only keep Harem from summoning more of herself while inside the shield, but also prevent her from storing the one of here that is inside the shield. Since the shield blocked the inbound teleport, it pretty explicitly blocks access to that pocket dimension.
The question of it blocking inter-harem communication depends on if said communication is routed through the pocket dimension.
That said, I think is has been established that inter-harem communication is handled by quantum entanglement between their brains, which, to the limits of our current understanding of physics, would be unblockable. As a side-note, assuming that the her bodies could be sufficiently separated, Harem seems to violate both the no-communications theorem, and causality in general. The fact is, however, that something violating causality is hardly noteworthy in a comic book universe (time travel anyone?)
Yea, I earn frequent time traveller vouchers.
Ingredients for Harem to serve a useful function for society:
• Find out how to boost her teleport range to 52 light years.
• Get Dabbler to loan her a pocket telescope*
• Attach a suitable recording device.
• Acquire a space suit and training.
• Pop out to a spot in space that will give a clear view of the Texas School Book Depository, as it was on the 22nd November 1963.
• Prove that JFK was the 2nd gunman, on the grassy knoll.
* With sufficient magnification, to pick up bullet sized details, at that range.
….upstaged….
Harem’s not so great at the lesson learning. I’m surprised Sydney didn’t reflexively punch her again…
Even though Harem can learn 5 different topics at once, she does seem to be a slow learner…
Even worse, is the fact that Harem didn’t see Sydney do her “reflexive reset” after the first time, so she has no idea that Sydney is less likely to instinctively punch her nose again.
I’m surprised Dave passed up the chance to have Sydney accidentally sign that woman’s chest as the marker went crazy. :)
Now what kind of a signature would “___________________” be anyway?
:P
Harem should be careful how much she annoys Sydney because she can’t teleport through Sydney forcefield. Sydney could trap her in there and with the fly orb turn her into a human rattle.
I am not getting why a ‘wild’ Harem appears? Other than, perhaps, the context of being a ‘wild card’ which can be deployed in an unexpected fashion. Possibly playing on their being five of her, such as you might have in a hand of cards.
It’s a Pokemon reference.
Right, a Pokemon reference… you’re walking to your next destination, minding your own business, when *queue music and transition screen* a wild ____ appears! FIGHT!
The random encounters with untamed Pokemon in the worldmap appear suddenly with a “A wild Pokemon_Name appears” as your only warning.
Ahh, thanks for that. My Pokelore is
lackingnonexistent. Other than, apparently, you must ‘collect them all’.Well, something else for your pokelore… you keep animals that can be as big as a sky scraper in tiny balls as small as a baseball or cricket ball, and then you only let them out to fight other animals for you…
Here’s a short parody that explains everything… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb48YDxhPkg
He he. Some hilarious stuff in there. Nice to see that Bob came up with the same solution I did.
*Starts petition to have all unfairly bound creatures freed, and to ban them being forced to fight, for the entertainment of others*
I’d forgotten how funny that was. ReBoot was such a great show.