Grrl Power #324 – She should put all those answers on a shirt
So yeah, they missed something fairly obvious there, but they didn’t have much time to experiment. And when Sydney was saying “no whammy” she was hoping that Varia didn’t get feces-kinesis powers from her, projectile mucus, super miasma, or something else awful. Feces-kinesis would be a pretty awful power to have to fight against though. I’m pretty sure I’d surrender right away instead of facing some sort of poopocalypse.
Varia obviously answered some but not all questions about how her powers work, notably whether or not it’s always on when she’s touching someone and if it lasts after she breaks contact, but like I’ve said before, I’d like to get out of the habit of making sure everything gets explained right as it’s introduced. It’s fine to leave stuff for later, and that includes Vance’s introduction for the moment, what with the team leader popping in.
My original draft of panel 3 had Varia just saying “you’re adopted” and the girl with a surprised look on her face, but Xochitl isn’t a dick like that, so I changed it so she’s saying it to a kid who obviously already knows. That said, using her powers to tell if a child is related to their parents is trickier than telling if a brother and sister really are brother and sister since they would have fairly similar DNA, whereas their parents (hopefully) don’t. (Insert joke about the American deep south here. Or European royalty I guess.)
I’ll be at A-kon starting in the late morning. There’s not much going on Thursday, but I work with guest relations and help bus guests in from the airport and all that sort of stuff. The plans for a meetup this year besides trying to bump into each other at one of the webcomic panels is 8pm Friday in front of Media, which is a bar and grill in Atrium II (the main… well, atrium.) Follow me on Twitter if you aren’t already as it’s the easiest way to keep up while I’m at the con, assuming T-Mobile gets reception there. Sprint was mostly no bueno but I’ve switched now. I think I’m going to actually wear my battle pie chart shirt on Friday as the one Grrl Power shirt I have isn’t in good shape. I usually think about getting a new one made when it’s only 3 days to the next event when I’d want to wear it.
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The reason Varia cant pick up a power from Sydney is that Sydney has no soul. Her love of eating things that would make sane people scream and run in terror is evidence of this. As for Max………
exccept for panel 5 and 6 :/
nice, almost missed it
hmmm wonder if varia needs hand holding or just skin contact……….and now i’m picturing a high power flying orgy.
And now I can’t get that image out of my head. Thank you so very much for that.
grrr.
If she can gain power from a piece of someone they’d probably start collecting half inch square skin samples from everyone in the building and build her a little flip book.
With some fava beans and a nice chianti?
+1 for the Hannibal Lecter reference.
Why not just hair samples?
imagine if one of her new powers was the power to grant powers and you now get to experience Hancock’s curse…….no not the become mortal thing……
The power to make a bad movie? Good god… now I truly will have nightmares!
it would have been better if he hadn’t pussified. At the end he’s just black superman. and superman is boring.
OMGoodness you’re right! Sydney is STEALING VARIA’S SOUL!!
wouldn’t she have red hair then?
Fecal Kinesis:
https://rosalarian.tumblr.com/post/25939357045/my-friend-called-me-a-fecal-wizard-as-an-insult
I’m not clicking that.
Seconded.
I clicked it, it was glorious.
Part of me wants to make a pun about ‘glory’
But the other part of me beat the first part of me senseless.
Challenge Accepted.
I clicked it. It was awesomely crappy!
You had to do it! You HAD to start with the puns, you maniacs!
DOO you know what you’ve done? Well?! DOO you?
Stop brown nosing.
It was our doody to meet the challenge
Please. Stop. I beg you.
Stop before I have to begin a movement to end this type of toilet humor
Have you no decency sirs?
I prefer “fecal wizard” over “shit witch.”
I’m thinking Varia picks up syd’s powahs ONLY when Sydney uses an orb… just floating about her head don’t work ;)
amirite DaveB?
oh shoot, just noticed the orbs :D
I think more likely she copied the ability to use those orbs.
The idea is that there is some kind of “lock” on those balls. Maybe genetic. Maybe starsigns of birth. Maybe first person to touch one 100 years after they lost their owner.
And whatever makes Sydney able to command them is copyable, apparently.
Basically Vara just copied the “Authenticated User” session of Sydney. She is like Kopy Kraut.
YAY! Peggy!! my fave
Hm… that’s rather odd that the orbs would be the only part of it. Unless Sydney’s connection to those orbs is more than merely ‘finders soulbinders’ or something like that.
She didn’t try touching one.
I have to wonder… could that allow the use of three powers then? I mean, Halo could hold two Orbs, Varia grab onto her, and then grab onto a third Orb and use it?
It depends.. if they are holding hands, the total number of orbs still remains two.. if she merely needs to touch skin the number increases to 3. If a DNA sample works, it’s best not to try it out with Sydney’s gestalt powah… The orbs and Varia’s gestalt would probably prevent either of them getting hurt, but the intervening space might get crushed regardless of a planet between them… (Potentially creating a very short-lived black hole.. or a very very big implosion/explosion…)
Even if it’s a “holding hands” thing, there’s a possibility that both of them holding the same orb would work, which would increase them to 3 orbs possible. However, as Dave has said, there’s a lot he hasn’t explained yet. It it only for the duration of contact, or can it last?
But also as Scottostanek says slightly below here, there’s plenty of usability with the “protection from powers” even if they’re still restricted to 2 orbs. Especially if the orbs function differently for Varia…
Option 3: they get 3-legged race pants so they have a lot of skin contact from hip to ankle and both can use both hands to wield 4 orbs at once!
Such a shame that humans lack tails. So much simpler if you can just wrap those around each other’s. Easier if you have a nice long, handsome tail, of course.
*wags nice long, handsome tail, happily*
But… But dogs tails arent prehensile.
*slaps Pander’s leg, with tail*
TheCrimsonF*cker was suggesting contact was sufficient. In which case grasping would not be necessary. And dogs do have quite sufficient control to position their tails where they want. Moving them away from grasping hands. Or tucking them under their tummies, if need be. More than enough control for simple entwining.
Four, really. Unless you assume that Xochitl has to use a hand to “touch skin.”
i’m wondering if varia can hold onto a different part of someone to gain access to their powers, like the back of their neck, their upper arm, or their wrist. can she hook her arm with the other person and gain their powers? can she gain multiple powers by having multiple people putting their hands on her? like if she wears a shirt with an open back and 5 people put their hands on her back would she get access to all those powers or just the first one to touch her? otherwise if it’s just the hand then it would limit the powers to 2 at a time since she would have both hands occupied. with sydney though i’m curious what would happen if they both accessed the same orb…would it double in strength or would it be halved? would she get 2 tentacles if they both used lighthook or would it be an uncooperative length since they would both be trying to control it? so many questions…this is all just conjecture though, if she can’t control the orbs then it’s useless though i’m pretty sure she can as long as she and sydney are touching since the orbs started orbiting her as well as sydney.
I brought this up on the last page – “Group Hug!” *explodes*
again, high power flying orgy.
Hey Varia, the person on the team who gives you super Heal other people powers is the only one you need to protect because touching them grants the power BUT ALSO MAKES THEM IMMUNE TO IT,
Think about that one hey.
Misplaced apostrophe patrol on Panel 7. The plural of “powah” should be “powahs”, not “powah’s”. I guess grammar check would miss that one because it’s already misspelled.
Also, Celtics T-shirt – the only way she could be more Boston is with a Red Sox cap. (For the record, you actually cannot pahk ya cah in Hahvahd Yahd. It’s pretty much foot traffic only. Also that’s in Cambridge, not Boston. And very few people actually have that thick an accent. Just to clear up a few misconceptions I hear every time I tell people I’m from Massachusetts.)
I don’t… I don’t understand what is happening now.
Um maybe it is some kind of Massachusetts dialect? Is there a translator in the house?
Would pre-orb Sydney have given her other powers than current Sydney does? Since it seems that the touch lets her use the orbs, and no orbs… well… I guess we’ll never know…
Varia says, “The powah I get from a person is always the same, …” so, at least in her experience, it doesn’t change. Which, if we take it as true, could mean something interesting. Like maybe whatever it is that lets Sydney control the orbs is intrinsic. Which might imply that finding them was not an accident. They could even be an manifestation of her power. Sydney’s scuba diving in a place where she expects to find treasure and her power manifests the orbs? Possibly. Or maybe whatever intrinsic power led he to the orbs. Might help explain how she made it through the scuba certification course, too if a supernatural force was helping keep the casualties (and stitches down to a minimum)… :-)
Or, and maybe a simpler explanation is that the orbs changed Sydney in some fundamental way, so Varia would actually have gotten a different powah prior to the orb discovery. And Varia has just never has a chance to compare before and after with someone undergoing such a transformation.
Either way implies interesting things about Sydney, Varia, and/or the world they live in.
I was wondering something vaguely along those lines a while back, the skill tree thing doesn’t seem like it would work well with anyone but a geek. It could be that the tree is just a user interface tailored to fit Sydney’s understanding.
It is a projection and, as such, would be relatively simple to adapt it to the expectations and experiences of the user. With the level of technomagic that the orbs have, that is. Perhaps a mediaeval knight who acquired them might have it laid out in vertical sections, like a tourney board.
Broken up into bouts, and subdivided in a manner he is familiar with. One part for jousting, and another for sword and shield, on foot. But having flags matching the colours of the orbs. A convention he is well versed in.
The compromise being that he would not have a visual to carry the circular nature, where the last can interact with the first. But he may have no such associations to draw upon, for that to make sense for him. Unless he belonged to some crazy order, who all sat around a round table?
A druid might have four separate stonehenge-like patterns shown. Each with symbology associated with the four seasons. They would lack the preconceptions needed to realise that unlocking this power gives you access to that power, as readily as we might.
But they would understand that, in order to grow something, first you must plant it in spring, water it in summer, harvest it in autumn and store it in winter. So they would grasp that the four sections were a progressive sequence.
Ghosting out summer, autumn and winter will then go to make clear that, for the orbs, they are in spring. Regardless of the current time of year. It has the drawback that they might mistake the upgrade tree for needing to be done at a particular time of year. But they will have that glowy thing in their hand to give them a hint that they need to do the planting now.
Equally the game skill tree might be a compromise, which is bounded by Sydney’s limited understanding, but tries to convey the options in as meaningful an analogy as she may be able to follow. Yet still could be misinterpreted. She did make a mistake with her first glowy, after all.
Finally there could be aspects that are too complex for her to follow at this time. So the display does not complicate things by attempting to convey them. But it does hint that there will be more to come. So, presumably, the display will update when she is ready for it.
So Varia’s power turns Sydney into a guy? It lets Varia grab Sydney’s balls.
Waah waah waah waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8XTpCwicwE
That doesn’t lead to Fozzie. -5 geek cred.
Wah wah, not Wokka wokka.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8uY79zQeak
5 geek cred rebate.
+10 geek cred (Muppets are on double points this month)
Then you’ll love this
https://youtu.be/9ytei6bu7kQ
that was his catch phrase, not the sound played when a joke bombed. cred stands.
two things i noticed…
one, dave vever said how long varia’s powas last
two, can varia’s powers be activated by other skin contact, for example if someone touched her arm or something. If they do then her uniform could be sleevless, or even backless so that people could place their hands on her to pass on a power. who knows, that might unlock her gestalt’s hyper beam, entire team puts their hands on varia, huge kahmehameha
So far, from what was said about Harem’s power, it looks like it might just be for as long as she’s in skin contact with another person.
Otherwise she wouldnt have said ‘it lets her tag along with Harem’ – she would have said something like ‘it lets me teleport’
then while it is a flashy power, that would ultimately limit its usefulness. If varia has to be in constant contact with the person she is receiving a power from that would put her, and the unlucky recipient, in some pretty serious danger on the battlefield.
I don’t know. I can think of a few examples during the car park battle were her powers could have been really useful, like against Death Toll.
This is a misleading turn of phrase. Varia is the recipient of the power. Further her partner is immune to any harm from the power. So, either way, the term unlucky does not apply. But that is just a quibble, the gist of the rest of your comment is reasonable.
Holding hands is, without doubt, potentially very dangerous on a battlefield. It restricts both of their capabilities to manipulate things. For instance Peggy will not be able to use any rifle. It makes them a larger, single, target.
It removes various tactical options, like flanking. And, most significantly, it restricts mobility. Some more so than others. Heatwave, for instance, is a weak flyer, so would not be able to lift their combined weight off the ground. Whereas others will have little problem. Maxima carried Sydney, as an example. Super Hiro can carry a coach. And Halo carried Harem. All with minimal difficulty.
However any non-super would be lucky to partner for her, if the above restrictions are not too dangerous for the circumstances. Because suddenly the pair of them gain access to a super power. Should it have transportation options, that will overcome their mobility problems. Defensive and it may more than compensate for being a bigger target. And so on.
Further, given that she has seven billion possible powers, some of those will be staggeringly useful. That is more than every super power which has ever been described in every comic Marvel, DC and all the webcomic writers, on the planet, have made to date. It is easy enough to find ones that are useful enough, that holding hands is a minor price to pay.
Or where holding hands isn’t really a big limitation. E.G: Astral Projection or Far Sight.
So, I doubt I’m the first to ask, but what if she touches multiple people? Does she get a mix or something completely new, or is it just first touch wins?
Also, when gestalting with Harem (I’m pretty sure Harem would be sniggering at that), does it count against Harem’s carry limit, or does it even increase it, like Varia has her own in addition to what Harem normally uses?
Original question. You get +2.
For your first paragraph there are multiple options. My opinions are she only gets the one power, and it would be one of the powers that she normally gets from the individual she chooses. She already has access to seven billion powers. But does at least have the restriction that if she only has three teamates, she just has the three powers (or power sets) to choose from.
Whereas she would have six options if she could any touch two of the three. And a seventh with all three. And the numbers get silly very rapidly with any larger groups. So it would not be a matter of saying, ‘should I choose to teleport, use lightning or have a metal body?’
It would be ‘I need healing powers, so that is…’ (quick pause to check database) ‘Sydney plus Ren’. ‘Oh no, we just accidentally blew up the city! I need Maxima, Heatwave and the janitor so that we can turn back time and stop Sydney pushing that button marked “DO NOT PUSH“!’
Re. your last paragraph, either is workable. But it is phrased as “I get to tag along wherever she goes”, which strongly implies that Harem’s normal limit is applied, shared between them. So Varia’s clothing and equipment had better not be too heavy, or that might get left behind!
I have to say, that accent is getting old /fast/…
Try having your English and your Social Studies classes teacher, the same lady for both 7th and 8th grades, be from Bahston…when you’re growing up near Seattle.
I have no problem with it /spoken/, actually; it’s the written version that’s getting grating.
And, on the previous page, another commentator was complaining that it was not being used all the time.
So even when Varia tries her best to tone it down, she still gets complaints. Poor girl!
I actually had to face the same choice myself, as a child. Fight (probably quite literally, in the playground) for the right to retain my own accent and not be bullied into conforming to the norm. Or take the easy way out and adapt.
I took the latter. But now no longer have my natural accent. So I is sad.
*hangdog expression*
I’ve lived in Boston.
I’ve lived in Brooklyn.
I’ve lived in Hawaii.
I’ve lived in Texas.
I’m apparently trying to collect all the accents. It’s like pokemon.
Meh I speak like i’m brit half the time, and get the full on accent while explaining to someone exactly how much of a moron they are, and I’ve never been there, hell I’ve rarely left Iowa cept for when I was a kid and we visited uncle ray in SD. Interesting thing to note is that I recently had a doc from around there, forget where exactly but his accent was more giles then spike. I wonder how much slang I used that I simply shouldn’t know.
Wait… you speak like a brit when you’ve never been there?
…
Madonna? Is that you?
heh, too much bbc via pbs and of course the aforementioned spike.
Yup. Noticed it right off. The orbs are now circling both of thier heads, not jyst Sydney’s…
Omg, you’re right! I thought there was something odd about them, but I hadn’t pinpointed it as that!
So we official meet the dues ex machina of the Grrl Power Universe. I wasn’t sure if the orbs would fit that roll or not.
I assume you mean this https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeusExMachina
Which is impossible now that we know this much about her powers we will be expecting them to be used that way which prevents Deus Ex Machina.
If dues ex machina wasn’t a type of the above then sorry, didn’t get where you were going with that. Debts from the machine? Sounds like american politics…
I typoed typo. Classic.
you misspelled type.
You failed to capitalize ‘you!’ :)
You failed to give your smiley a nose! :-)
My smiley came from South Park!
the idea of a smiley with a nose somehow seems more disturbing then my sigil.
I’m wondering whether Varia can get a power (sorry- powah) from Dabbler, or if her ability works on humans only.
If it is humans only, that might say something interesting about Maxima…
Maxima has a force field protecting her at a cellular level. And she can never completely lower her variable abilities. She always has some degree of super strength and reflexes, for example, which she cannot remove to boost her other abilities. The same is true for her defences. Varia was probably not able to directly touch Maxima as a result.
Some day there will be an unusual advert in the lonely hearts pages:
I would be interested to see what happens with Dabbler. That could go either way. And I cannot think of anything which would make either more likely than the other. The seven billion figure would still be true whether counting Dabbler in the population of the planet or not.
Well, she didnt say she couldnt get a power from Dabbler, so…. the assumption is she can. Though probably not from Dabbler’s cybernetic hand.
or varia has as a new recruit with no special need for it never meet/ had a chance to touch xurial and believing xurial to be human sees no reason to expect not getting a power
DaveB, what does the sign say on the corkboard? Terminally curious, here…
Always treat…. as is it was loa(ded)…. the barrel…. a safe…
A bit too blurry when zoomed in but that is what I could make out. Probably a gun safety sign since they are at a range. I’m assuming loaded because of the loa that can be seen in panel 5.
What i can tell it says something along the lines of “always treat your gun as if it was loaded, keep the barrel pointed in a safe direction.” kinda like a safety notice for people new to using guns. basically keep it pointed away from you and other people using the firing range. the only time it should be pointed at another person is if your life is in immediate danger…at least that’s the way it should be but then there are idiots, assholes, and extremists that use guns against other people to further their own agenda…
Commentators posted links to matching gun safety notices, on the first couple of pages where they appeared, if you are curious enough to check them out.
I bet the reason why her powers don’t show is because she get’s Super Nerd Powers! Like, the ability to find a limited edition figure across a crowded con floor. A fan’s heightened senses that can find fellow fans! Or Nerd Knowledge, like how old is Batman, or what Leonard Nimoy acted in BEFORE Star Trek!
It boggles the mind!
Or super adhd…….and she will now vibrate till her atoms split. story over folks.
Super adhd is correct. She is so distracted, that the point flew right over her head.
Of course the truth lies in the pattern in which her feathers have shifted color through out this series of updates.
True to name, as always.
Hmm, does Varia get identical powers from identical twins?
Bah, her power is clearly is heat resistance beyond any other strength seen before, I mean considering what Sydney eats.
I wouldn’t be surprised if her powahs (ugh) just sometimes don’t work on some people.
She specifies that the only person it has ever failed to work on is Maxima. And clearly has used it a lot (enough to work out the bit about relationships, and also is working her way through the entire building now).
But that does not preclude her from simply not having come across ones that it does not work for, so you could be right.
It is worth remembering the implications of this page, on incidence of supers, and this one on evolution when considering Varia’s comments about genetics.
Should’ve been more like “…derypting genomes wicked fast.”
We need a canadian in this comic also, so they can say ‘ay?’ and ‘doncha know’ after every other sentence as well :)
So does Varia need to remain in contact with with the person to use the power? I at first thought one touch would turn on the power until she touches someone else.
I also wonder if it has to be the hand, or at least skin. Could she make it work with a lock of hair? Even that has DNA in it.
Probably. Possibly.
Likely, unlikely. Ick, I hope not. On it (in the form of flakes of skin). If the follicle is retained, that has tissue, which would have DNA in it. But hair itself is composed of protein, notably keratin, so does not contain DNA.
Am I the only one who hears Schwarzenegger/Austrian style accent in my head instead of Bostonian?
Glad it isn’t just me then. Get to de Choppah!
Last panel, someone said “Female Gilbert Godfreid”, and now I just can’t get that out of my head… especially with her grin.
Theonly instance I HAVE of a boston accent is that horrible horrible person/woman/thing from whatever the hell reality show I never watched. I’m fairly sure Charles Emerson Winchester the Third doesn’t count.
When is Varia gonna say “wicked smaht”? I understand your not really from New England until you do
1. 1940 Bug’s got that name because he was a character in a cartoon and the director’s nickname was Bug’s. According to Chuck Jones in his book “Chuck Amuck ‘ a assistant was carrying a large model sheet of the rabbit calling out “Make way for Bug”s bunny”. The name stuck. 2. Peggy has been promoted, she’s a captain now.
Nope. Two silver bars would be captain. She has two golden ones.
That might be the Archon designation for corporal? Although, if so, it does seem rather likely to cause misidentification. As just demonstrated. Especially given that second lieutenant is one gold bar. So what would be used to designate a private?
We know that DaveB is working on sorting out the rank insignia, for consistency. But it does look like it might need some more tweaking. Especially as the various existing branches of the military have gradually been standardising the insignia.
Although, artistically speaking, giving the enlisted ranks their own version of the officer rank insignia does look cooler than the normal shoulder patches. And it would not be the first unit to decide that style outweighed conformity. Especially when making an elite unit distinctive, in some manner.
I think he’d hate Slo-bro and Bullet Time might be too obvious whether or not it is trademarked. Frame rate… no. FPS? Reflex? Shift?
Ooh Rev would work.
Reverend Ren.
“I’ve had a dream. In it ah was runnin’ verah fast, but ah could nevah reach the light at the end of the tunnel!”
Maybe this is a passive power of Sydney’s orbs?
I’m starting to like Varia.
Does it have to be her hand that activates her power though? Like if her and Sydney locked elbows, could they potentially use 4 orbs? I see some epic power combos in the future.
Varia does refer to getting power from people she grabs. Every example we have seen has been of her holding somebody (and them holding hands back, but I think that is just because such is more natural). But no exceptions.
So most likely she can hold Sydney by the arm (for example). Allowing Sydney to keep using two orbs, and allowing Varia the one extra herself.
But still a very useful option, with powerful combos, as you say.
Reminds me of Decoy Octopus from “Last Days of Foxhound” who would go around stealing people’s blood against their will.
If Varia wants Maxima’s powers she can just take her blood or stick her hand in her mouth.
Why are so many people wanting to stick fingers and hands in Maxima’s mouth?
Wait. Don’t answer that please.
not the orifice i wanna stick appendages in………imagine how sharp her fangs must be.
Maxima did not burn her mouth, when standing in the raging inferno caused by her plasma bomb explosion. Despite the fact that she was talking exensively. Maxima’s force field even protects the inside of her mouth. And any other orifices.
Also, I have to ask. Is she immune to the immense heat of Norfair?
I’ll just let myself out before objects start getting thrown.
If she can get powers from, like, carrying some blood vials and crushing it in her hand— well, I immediately imagined it’d look like the ‘consumables’ animation from Darksouls/Bloodborne.
Maybe one of the orbs prevent gestalt powers from activating from Sydney. Would seem a tad specific, but there’s like a more general explanation.
note that the orbs started orbiting both of their heads after they clasped hands.
So Varia gets additional powers only while touching someone else? Seems limiting. As I understood she has no default power
We don’t really know the limits. A frequently asked question is whether they have to be holding hands or can touch otherwise (to allow the use of more than one hand each). Then there’s Syd’s question of whether a tissue sample works. Then there’s the question of whether she gets some combination of two peoples’ powers if she touches them both at once (I’m guessing not, but time will tell), the question of whether she can choose whether to gain powers when touching someone or not, the question of whether it works on non-humans like Dabbler, the question of which shared powers she’s practiced using the most, etc. etc. etc.
IDGI – does she only have the power as long as she is in physical contact with someone?
Because then it is not really that useful.
Depends what power it is.
I dunno…. Electricity + Magnetism seems like an insanely useful combination.
Fire + Ice at the same time also seems quite useful. It would have worked really well against Death Toll.
Yes, but it generally means she has to remain stationary, as it’s pretty hard to run around and dodge, while maintain physical contact.
Also if she gets, say, super speed, flight, invulnerability or super-strength she cannot use them effectively, because she’ll have to carry around a highly vulnerable person, or drastically decrease efficiency of other hero (e.g. she presumably cannot fly when borrowing Heatwave powers, so when working of Heatwave she’ll decrease Heatwaves usefulness and mobility).
Her powers only become useful either if they can be used from a safe distance, allow her to protect the power-donor (e.g. powers akin to Sydney’s shield orb powers), or somehow complement or enhance donor’s power in a way that compensates for the fact that they have to be relatively immobile.
In addition she is entirely defenseless when she does not have powers and can be easily one-shot by a super villain the moment she disengages from her donor, which is a huge liability.
Her talents are waaay better used in nonviolent capacity, where she can easily travel with a entourage of suitable power-donors and does not have to worry about protecting them and being forcibly separated from the source of her powers.
There’s nothing that she’s said that implies that she has to remain stationary, actually :)
As I said – running on a complex terrain while remaing in physical contact with someone is complicated to say the least. Doing something at the same time (e.g. using powers in offencive manner or, say, dodging) is nigh-impossible
If only there was a hero who could carry her around with them, and not have their mobility impaired?
So that now you have three heroes working in complex tandem so that one could actually use her powers?
Seems inefficient.
You leapt to an unnecessary conclusion. The most obvious solution is Varia and Halo, assuming that she can use the orbs. Then just like Harem did, Varia can travel in the force field. No third party involvement whatsoever.
Likewise Super Hiro is strong enough to carry a coach, he will have no difficulty carrying her. If her gestalt power with him is useful, they too can make a useful pairing. Each wearing a harness would allow them to use carabiners to connect themselves together, to avoid having to hold on. Maybe not very elegant looking. But safe and practical enough.
If they can figure out how to bypass the forcefields preventing Varia from touching Maxima’s skin, they could pull the same trick with her.
Finally, if Varia can retain a power (or power set) indefinitely, until she replaces it with another of her choice (ie this assumes that touching other people does not do that involuntarily), then she is free to pick and choose what power to have as her active one. And can then get a lift with whichever flying hero she wants.
The latter has the advantage that she has a choice of two powers. The one she has active, or she can drop that, and grab the one from her pilot. Or any other person in the vicinity, for that matter.
Well, obviously if Varia can retain her power for some reasonable duration then there is no problem. This does not seem to be the case, though – you may notice that orbs snapped right back to Sydney for example, as soon as they stopped touching.
She could be carried by Hiro or some other FISS-type superhero, but only in case her gestalt powers give her same (or comparable) degree of invulnerability (otherwise Hiro will have to actively avoid danger, negating the point of his invulnerability) AND some useful powers that complements Hiro’s or can be used while piggyback riding. Could happen, but assuming that one gestalt = one power, not likely.
So, yeah, she can only work with heroes that have mass-protection powers or give her mass-protection powers, a.i. Sydney.
Reasonable counter. Although the conclusion is exclusive again. It does completely ignore the possibility of the flexible powers which are at her disposal.
I will just state one, as an example. Let us say that Math grants her shapechange abilities. He is competent enough that he will not be inconvenienced by her keeping a hand on his shoulder, or elbow. She can probably be the one to provide them transportation options. For instance turning into a horse. Or, if she has powerful options, even into something like a griffon or a dragon.
Should they be in circumstances where two people are a disadvantage, she can turn into something small, either remaining in his hand (if hand to paw contact is required) or sneaking into his shirt, if it only requires her to be touching him).
When brute strength is required, such as opening a vault door, or lifting an obstacle, she can do the honours. If impersonating a villain will help a mission succeed, she is there, and so on.
In no way would that partnership be ineffective or hampered.
So, whilst it would restrict the options, Dave has plenty of scope to take Varia to different destinations than the ones you are mandating.
True, but then imagine Math-Varia pair fighting somebody with strong offensive powers. As long as Math is able to dodge around without breaking contact with Varia AND Varia has some defensive capability AND offensive capability enough to assist Math everything is peachy.
But this is a complex coordination of movement in a complex terrain when fighting someone really dangerous. The second they accidentally break contact, Varia loses powers and a single glancing blow from an opponent will probably kill her on the spot, or severely injure her.
And of course it further complicates Math’s life, as he is now severely restricted in mobility and probably has to keep at least one limb on Varia instead of using it to punch an opponent.
The costs and risks are pretty high, whereas payoff is rather unlikely to be really great, unless, again, Varia gets some awesome set of powers that compensates both for the risk to her life should she break contact and problems Math will face in needing to keep in contact with someone slower and less combat-capable than him.
All very true. Heroes can overcome such issues, and Archon are not above using equipment to mitigate safety risks, but I will not argue that they do not exist.
One quibble though, I doubt very much that Math would be handicapped. He would just view it as a challenge. And quite a minor one at that. Chaining one hand to an immovable object, then fighting off a dozen enemies, was probably something he mastered years ago!
As regards defences, by the way, as I note I failed to address that explicitly, a shapechanger has many defensive options at her disposal, so would easily be able to look after herself.
I am not saying it is impossible, and while it may bend my Suspension of Disbelief a tad, it definitely won’t break it.
I am just saying instead of shoving another semi-superhero in the combat is quite inefficient compared to what she could do in non-combat setting with a rught entourage of power donors.
She could raise complex and massive structures with some-sort of earth-control powers, heal people, control weather to prevent hurricanes and floods, transmute metals, generate free energy (which incidentally is probably better use of Jigawatts powers)… all in one go. A six or ten- people super-disaster relief team that can easily transport itself where needed, or a verifiable cornucopia of free stuff – much better use of her powers than fighting criminals risking the chance that her powers clonk out for nanosecond and she ends up as a smear on the road.
Preaching to the choir on that one :-D
She is much to valuable to risk on trivia. But, if mounting an expedition to save the world, she would be a major asset to consider. And, if she had some field experience under her belt, she would be more likely to be an asset than a hindrance.
Consider that no matter what the problem is, she has seven billion chances to be the one who has the right power to counter it! And they might be able to fast track a way of finding just who her gestalt partner would need to be for such. Perhaps by using divination spells or psionic precognition.
Varia is officially one of my favorite characters now :)
(Along with Maxima, Dabbler, Peggy, Math, and our protagonist) :)
But… but Vance is so pretty!
Hey, what about Suzie News?
I know someone must’ve made this joke but – shouldn’t Varia be touching balls instead?
I would prefer her touching Sydney’s orbs.
So they’re are orbs and not balls? Sorry got confused…
Actually they light up and circle her head so maybe they’re…