Grrl Power #327 – Ask a self evident question…
I’ve had this page in my head practically since I started the comic. Its tough to sit on them for that long, but it just made more sense to have it happen on the second day at the earliest. Granted, Sydney had to play along a little. I don’t mean she immediately understands what Maxima’s doing and rolls with it, I mean she specifically had to not get it in order for the gag to work, so I sort of poke fun at that with the “going to keep staring this direction” word bubble.
Normally Maxima doesn’t make a habit of pointing her gun at recruits, and obviously Sydney will be taught never to point a gun at anyone unless there’s a pretty good chance she’ll need to shoot them, but I thought I’d say that Max gets away with it because besides outranking everyone, her finger isn’t on the trigger naturally, and more importantly, her pistol is single shot break action and she doesn’t keep it loaded. With her speed, she can load it faster than most people can cock a hammer. She can even do it one handed, just let go of the gun in mid air and pop a bullet in the chamber before it has a chance to fall more than a centimeter.
There was no way to make this a single page comic. If I really had to I maybe could have cut 3 of the panels and maybe even combined the first two, but it would have lost something and still wouldn’t have fit on a single page, so it had to be a double. Unfortunately it put me two days behind and I’m not caught up yet because of A-kon, though fortunately I didn’t fall any further behind. I still have my buffer but I will probably never actually use up my buffer. That’s for like if I break my hand or something. Not that I have enough of a buffer to ride that out, I just don’t want to use it up if for no other reason than it would take me about 4 weeks to get an extra page ahead again. That’s why I haven’t updated the vote incentive yet this month. I do have two pieces that are half finished I could use but I’d like to have them a little further along before I post them.
I’m mostly pleased with the art on this page, (I could nitpick nearly all of it of course because artists are hyper self critical like that) so maybe it’s dumb, but my favorite panel is the one with the ballistics gel dummy. It just really looks like ballistics gel to me, especially with the old bullets and the spawled trails behind them.
The firing range BTW is in the basement, one level above the garage where the machine shop and the few ground vehicles the team uses are kept. Regular parking is in a proper parking garage next to the building
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He he. I was just doing a look through for details, and then had a start. “Why has Arianna developed antenna? Is she some sort of alien?”
Although, of course, the fact that it is only a bit of ceiling, falling on her then came back to me. The intent was conveyed clearly enough in the first read through. But when looking closely for small details…
She is a cousin of .
Which explains her Information Manipulation level very well.
I took it as an exasperation mark at first then got the ceiling falling idea
Wow, gun thing really gets people commenting. I… can’t read all of these before work so…
Thanks for the fun content Dave! *exits*
DaveB the panel with the small part of ceiling bouncing off Ariana? That screams a need for a comic sound effect… Plink would be easiest. But a sound-i-fied repair cost pun might work better with her expression as she’d immediately be thinking of the costs involved…
So… using $ in the sound effect might be correct. Anyone have a suggestion? (for the stone hitting bouncing off her head)
maybe Co$tly-plink?
and second for other posters. The message Maxima is teaching Halo/Sydney is that a finger isn’t seen as an offensive weapon even when it has just been demonstrated as such. But a gun, that image is ingrained into the cultural meme of the world as a threat and will always get an immediate reaction. Where a gun might not be overkill the use of a superpower might be seen so. So learning when and where to us or not use superpowers is a primary lesson for all of ARC-Swat employees. It also would stink to high heaven if some admin types in upper govt started writing their ROE…good reason to have a General on the Staff to tell them to fuck off and let them do their job. Arianna of course inherits the PR flak storm from any incidents, but as far as General is concerned. It’s handled and if he sees a problem that needs special attention in his troops he and Maxima will handle those.
Will we ever get to that media prepping course Arianna mentioned?
Looks like Ari has started (she is talking to Suzie and Will Smith)
Arianna would come bursting into the room with a very p.o.’d look on her face and in a very loud voice demanding Maxima what the hell she’s doing?
If Arianna is dumb enough to go annoy supers on the gun range, especially Max, I look forward to seeing how that goes.
Don’t Arianna and Maxima have a kind of hate-hate relationship???
It’s sort of a professional relationship based on increasingly mutual inconvenience.
… and major incompatibility on both a professional and personal level.
Hehe, looks like Max’s hair needs to be redone again.
Good news is that she will get it done for free.
I hope they have some rebar to pin it in place.
on a somewhat related note,,, the laser pointer on max’s gun is gonna be pretty much useless,, such a large bore gun with a short cannon is not gonna have much precision at long range!
altough i guess it could have intimidation purpose,,
Max has superb eyesight, the laser pointer is pointless, ahaha punny
Max also has super strength. She probably can fire that thing with next to no recoil.
Target designator.
Just in case the gun itself isn’t intimidating enough, the little red dot in the middle of the target’s chest…
I saw the hand cannon and thought a Thompson contender g2 would be an ideal choice for Maxima. A single shot pistol/rifle. It was used in Hard Target by the main villain. Again a red dot appearing on you is another change of pants situation.
See, me, I thought that thing was a concealed-carry shotgun (picture is here: 14″ shotgun)until DaveB called it a pistol, especially since some shotguns have laser pointers.
Then again, I’ve never really understood why you’d want a single-shot weapon in the first place. Even if you are a great shot, you can easily run into scenarios where more than one shot is required, and if she can use a break-action as fast or faster than most folks can use a semi, then logically she should be able to use a pump even faster.
with a pump you put multiple rounds in a magazine and depending on the model may have to eject unwanted rounds to reach the one you want other models you can load the desired round in place of pulling a round from the mag resulting in the same effect as the single shot breach pistol max carries
It’s an impractical weapon to start with. You basically need super strength to use it. Of course there are more sensible guns for her to carry around, but she wanted a signature weapon.
Laser pointers are only useful in shorter quarters where you don’t need to account for the projectile’s ballistic curve (“bullet drop”) and extra factors like wind and humidity, basically they let you see where you’re shooting in cases where you might not have an opportunity to assume a proper stance allowing you you to aim down the ironsights.
Given that Max is the field leader, I can see her gun’s laser pointer having definite uses as a simple designator.
She wants a teammate to go for a specific target, or to avoid a specific target, or even go through a specific accessway – being able to simply light it up and say “THAT one”, instead of making a detailed description, would make for easier communications AND be a real time-saver.
Yes, she could have a simple laser pointer for that kind of thing. But mounting it on her gun allows for the option of shooting at the target whilst singling it out for her team at the same time.
It’s a threat thing as much as it is to help her aim. Max is a fair shot, but all of the non-super members of Arc-SWAT are better than her. Plus as Devil Dan pointed out the thing has no recoil in her hands, and a fairly long barrel. It’s really designed for intimidation since she can do a lot more damage than the gun.
Much as I hate to admit it, Sydney earned that!
Also, this is my new favourite page~! :)
The way DaveB has been going since Day 1, I predict that your “favorite page” is likely to be changed frequently…
Up until the second half of the comic I thought she was trying to show that not only did she pierce the ballistic gel dummy, but also destroyed the wall behind it, too – with that being the reason for a low-power sidearm in addition to the extremely heavy artillery. If you have to rescue some hostages you don’t want to blow them away together with the criminals and half the city Love Pheromone-style…
Relatively low powered sidearm. That bullet is used on rhinos.
But only because T-Rex is extinct.
…Until they get a mission to Isla Sorna (aka: Site B).
I’d still say the more self evident reason is that quite a lot of superpowers are kind of rubbish whenever you want to apprehend someone that lacks super powered fortitude without sending him to the ER with permanent disfigurations… =p
Also, collateral damage. Shoot someone and if you pick your ammo correctly for the job the bullet won’t hit anyone behind him.
Making scrap metal out of tanks is all well and good but if you want to take out some guy that has crazy mind powers but would break a leg if someone shoved him gently, without killing him, you’re better off just shooting him in the foot.
if you’re anyone but peg you aim center mass as head, arms, and legs are much harder to hit resulting in a greater chance the round hits behind the target. even if the round lands the odds of a through shot or ricochet off the skull go up resulting in the round continuing in an unknown direction with potentially deadly force and leaving the target with a potentially non-disabling wound
“Leave the trick shots for SWAT snipers” eh?
Then again, I’m pretty sure they go for center of mass too, for the same reasons.
I’d honestly be more scared of Max pointing a finger at me than a gun. You could potentially survive a bullet…
So you are sayiny you wouldn’t let her finger you???
Yes. I am definitely saying that. I mean, if there’s one place you don’t want that thing to go off by mistake…
(Also her skin is metal. She’s attractive enough to look at, but it’d be like making love to a female C3P0. Not interested. I’d honestly pick any other member of the cast over her for several reasons…)
I know, once you’re past the cognitive dissonance, Max can’t even wink and do finger guns at you without you being all “watch where you point that thing!”
It took me a while to convince my brain that Max doing the wink and the gun was an image it should generate. Like picturing Qui Gon Jinn going to Wallmart to replenish his substantial Axe Body spray supply, and while he’s at it he realizes he’s hungry and picks up some “food” at the built in McDonald’s.
This reminds me of a pencil and paper RPG I played before, when our most lethal fighter bought a gun. “Why do you need a gun, you can kill three men with a single punch!” we asked.
“I know, I need the gun in case I don’t want to kill someone in one hit.” He was completely serious.
The whole room lost it for almost 20 minutes.
That look on Arianna’s face. Priceless.
now i gets to feel a little smug as i called this thursday
Actually, many LEO’s never draw their weapon in the line of duty. Most Americans, like 99.9999%, never see the business end of a firearm. Of course, the rest of the world would never know this by our cop tv shows. On the other hand, according to “Death in Paradise” ( fun little BBC cop show), the murder per capita is much, much higher on small, tropical islands than in major U.S. cities.
i dont feal that arkhon members will be so lucky as local leo’s in regard to how often they have to draw thir wepon. but then if archon is called in then shits alredy going down
Yea. I imagine that much the same can be said for regular SWAT units too. But still not quite as frequently as we might imagine.
Not sure if someone pointed this out already but shouldn’t it be “maniac” and not “mainiac”?
Maybe Max is from Maine?
That would be like referring to a rogue AI computer as “Looney-Vac,” or “I B M-becile.”
It’s all in the pronunciation.
Yeah, I fixed it.
Get the feeling Max might still be a little mad over the Obama thing?
Don’t think so, actually.
There will come a day when pointing in school will be tantamount to waving a gun about.
Already there.
Maryland: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/boy-6-suspended-from-silver-spring-school-for-pointing-finger-like-a-gun/2013/01/02/21acc8d4-54fc-11e2-8b9e-dd8773594efc_story.html
Massachusetts: https://reason.com/blog/2014/11/20/little-boy-suspended-for-pointing-his-ha
Ohio:https://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/03/04/boy-who-used-finger-like-gun-suspended.html
Colorado: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/06/6-year-old-fingers-shape-of-gun-suspended_n_6813864.html
well, considering this…
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/720
yeah, pointed fingers can indeed be dangerous, even when they are not intended to.
They’re already suspending and expelling kids for pointing a finger with the thumb raised in the universal “kid” sign for “gun”, one school calling it a “level two replica weapon”. A deaf kid, whose legal name is “Gunner” (not the Scandinavian “Gunnar”, actually named after a person who shoots guns) signs his name as two hands making successive gun signs, “shooting”, was asked to CHANGE HIS NAME so he wouldn’t make those “threatening” gestures.
I understand Maxima’s lesson. Humans in our day and age have been inculcated to have a conditioned response to the sight of a gun — to be alarmed by one, even (or perhaps, especially) if it is held by an authority figure. The reason for carrying a gun, even though you can disintegrate matter with your finger, is that a GUN is socially a huge fear symbol that any bad guy can relate to. As Kevin Smith taught us in “Dogma”, a big gun is a “fecalator”. When you’re staring down a barrel that looks big enough to stuff your fist in, your bowels become suddenly loose.
Even more to the point, Halo didn’t react with any concern whatsoever that Maxima was pointing the finger that JUST vaporized a target right between her eyes…but dove for cover behind her force field when she had a gun pointed at the same place. A finger or other body part just have the same punch — when I say punch, I mean like “punch the mental VCR button and start playing back your life before your eyes” punch — as seeing a humongous gun muzzle in your face.
Then there’s the concept Max has been trying to get across, that it isn’t just the target, it’s what’s BEHIND or AROUND the target. Max’s demonstration just caused damage to the building as well as the target. A gun can be far more precise than disintegrato-vision or being able to throw fireballs, or make lightning fry someone. That same bolt of lightning might cause televisions, radios, and computers for a city block to suddenly burn up, just as if there was a near miss by a natural bolt of lightning. That can add up to a lot of insurance claims or class action lawsuits.
Then there’s the apocalyptic “Kal-El vs. Zod” factor. Publicity stills from “Batman vs. Superman” show people upset that “Superman destroyed Metropolis”. Technically, Zod and his crew of super-loonies destroyed Metropolis — Superman was trying to STOP them — but Zod’s dead, his crew is banished, and the only one left standing to point an angry finger at is Superman. So if you are fighting bad guys who CAN be hurt by something as normal as a gun, USE a gun, because the material and social damage you might accidentally cause with a gun is FAR CHEAPER to repair than if you use your “Ultra Mega Blast” in the Financial District and level a square mile of city. Sure, you took out the 50-foot tall atomic lizard, but you also took out the Chrysler Building. There’s gratitude, and there’s the annoyance you feel when your entire family and everything you ever knew and loved has just been resolved into quark soup while you were on a trip to Des Moines to sell self-sealing stem bolts.
Use the smallest amount of force that will answer the current need. If that’s an Aikido come-along hold, use that. If it’s the magical nuke you can summon with the eldritch tome your grandfather left you, and the need requires a magical nuke, well, I guess you’ll need to face the repercussions of it afterward…but you don’t use it because the pizza place shortchanged you. You call the regular police for that, and press charges. You don’t rip the entire building apart with your amaze-o-breath.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/04/us/ohio-boy-suspended-finger-gun
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/boy-6-suspended...
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/10/02/florida-boy-8-suspended...
It already is… :(
See, that kind of thing is just plain stupid. The first lesson every bully learns is that if you’re going to threaten somebody, you don’t do it out in plain sight where people can see you do it. That just gets you hurt…especially at my school, because we (the kids) didn’t like bullies AT ALL. So you threaten people in a way where nobody can see the threat but the victim, and nobody knows to call you on it. All this zero tolerance crap is doing is making school officials look stupid, and making sure that everybody gets totally blindsided when something bad happens.
I mean, it’s just like those school shootings. Okay, yes, that thing happens all too often, and it’s a really bad thing. Making the school into a fortress where nobody in the building can get out once one of the students DOES pull a gun is…well…I don’t want to say that the body count for most of those school shootings would have been lower if the officials had put less emphasis on making sure that the students couldn’t escape, and more emphasis on, say, video cameras to provide visual proof of who pull the gun, but it’s kind of hard not to.
Heh, ok, ok, point made. Maxima pointing her finger at you is innately less scary even to people who know what she can do with it than a gun, which has generations of ingrained fear response to work with. Sydney pointing a gun at you would probably scare you worse than her pointing one of her orbs at you.
So you carry guns to scare/shoot unpowered civilians?
Not going to do much else.
Not all supers are bulletproof. Not even most.
Theoretically, five snipers could take Harem out, if they all targeted one of her at the same instant. She’s not even bullet RESISTANT. Catch Heatwave when she’s not expecting it, and she’s as vulnerable as Arianna. Jiggawatt, if sufficiently surprised, could probably be killed with a knife between the ribs. Peggy is totally dependent on armored clothing for protection, and Halo isn’t invulnerable at all unless she uses one hand to hold the forcefield ball — she can be punched out like any other normal human, especially if she has her orbs inside Tubey.
You have guns to represent force multiplication and authority. That response has been trained into humanity since the invention of gunpowder weapons. Politicians artificially amplify that fear so they can get anti-gun bills passed. Schools panic at the sight of a Pop-Tart chewed vaguely in the shape of a gun. So, yeah, the idea is to scare the bad guy if he’s scare-able. Even if he can summon hordes of cats to tear you to shreds, he might be intimidated by a gun pointing at his head…and if accompanies by a pithy statement such as “if I hear so much as a purr, you’re leaving in a big rubber baggie”, it might just stop him in his tracks then and there.
Plus…even somebody like Anvil is going to notice if she gets shot by a round that’s really basically a taser in disguise. Guns don’t have to shoot metal balls for ammo–there’s a whole range of possibilities, most of which people like Anvil, Jiggs, Heatwave, and so on can’t really compensate for.
This is a fabulous page, and not just because Peggy is super cute. Great art, great gags, everything. Thanks, Dave.
Thank you and you’re welcome.
Thwelcome you?
Thwanks?
“Thwanks?”
That sounds like an activity for some loner looking at computer porn…
“Thwing!”
Heard frequently on “Thwayne’s Thworld”.
at least the “surprise reaction reset” is working well… she made a shield out of a table and is holding the shield orb
And, even more importantly, has raised her force-field.
What was Peggy going to do if she won the rock-paper-scissors?
Get the chance to stick a gun in a recruits face. Max likely still would have done the blasting but it would have been Peggy pulling the gun on Sydney.
This seems unlikely, since there is zero chance that Peggy’s gun isn’t loaded.
for the sake of pulling a gun in Sydney’s face, Peggy could very well just quickly unload her pistol during the time Max distracted Sydney with the pointed finger blasting a gelly torso
Dave. Archon has got to find better fasteners for their footwear. This is not the first time someone has lost a shoe during a minor fall. (sometimes a whole leg https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1204).
As for the impromptu press briefing, I am wondering when a comics-savvy reporter will get around to asking the question “Why did a military group that contains super powered individuals and claims to support the enforcement of justice decide to pick the name Archon, which is Greek for Lord?”
I thought that was just comic licence from Sydney’s flailing.
I’m not sure where those ear defenders and shades come from as I don’t see them in any of the other panels, no-one is wearing them and you can’t see any under the stalls.
When I hear the word “Archon” I think of a guardian spirit/angel thing.
But that’s just me. probably due to too much D&D.
Heretic – there is no such thing as too much DnD no matter if i is 1st 2nd 3rd or 3.5 …. I have no opinion on 5th as yet.
I meant D&D Lore, you know they pretty much retconned Tiamat into real life mythology, it wasn’t a 5-headed dragon till they made it so.
That was a compliment, not a criticism. Just to be clear.
+1 for the omission.
im puting a 5th together atm. its looking like it could be a nice system
I love the sixth panel , it can barely hold the power of Maximas blast :-)
But i didnt recognize that this was supposed to be some gel , i wondered what a bronze statue was doing in the shooting range :-P
Upon seeing the nutshots i gotta say : someone has ISSUES .
All in all great page , id like the one with Maxima pointing her finger as a Wallpaper , pretty please .
I like the wallpaper idea, but from a different perspective…Halo’s!
That could be one bad-ass look, with her finger ‘glowing’ as she preps the shot pointing right at you!
Yes ,thats even better , but it would be a lot more work for Dave , whereas giving us a high res of panel 10 and or 12 should be fairly little work.
The point is not that you can kill with the gun…but that you do not have to. Or something like that. Sam Vimes said it better.
Unfortunately, a few too many cops have forgotten that.
Exactly, a little headology can go a long way.
I’m pretty sure a kinetic laser shot from a finger point would kill most people, too, immediate cauterization be damned
Good news Maxima! You just got out of that photo shoot, since that kind of behavior (especially around grunts that are just learning proper weapon handling) would get you canned at worst, or sent back to training at best. It’s called trigger discipline. You don’t take out your gun unless you intend to shoot what you’re pointing at.
The ‘she knew it wasn’t loaded’ argument doesn’t fly either since there are a lot of people in prison for manslaughter, and soldiers who were jailed due to friendly fire ‘because they knew it wasn’t loaded’. You don’t aim your weapon at anyone unless you intend to use it. Period.
I get the joke you’re trying to tell her, and sydney’s part in it is funny, but ultimately, it just falls flat because this is the kind of behavior that gets made light of and yet results in people thinking it’s perfectly fine to do. Just look at the recent example of a cop pulling his gun on kids in bathing suits. And he was someone who trains other officers. He had to resign over it for a reason.
Read the author’s blog. Maxima’s weapon is never loaded.
Besides which, even if it did fire, Maxima can simply pick the bullet out of the air. We have seen her doing just that.
Your comments are valid for humans. Super humans though change the rules.
Max just fucked up big time.
Pointing a weapon at another person whether or not your finger is on the trigger is a punishable offense.
And just plain STUPID.
And she did it TWICE!
Please, tell me more about how you’re going to tell Maxima what she can and can’t do.
I’ll be two tri-state areas over.
It is called the UCMJ. federal, state and local laws.
Also civil court if you want to get nasty.
I have seen training exercises (on TV, I admit), where soldiers have sensors on their weapons, which register when the target soldier is ‘hit’. Nobody gets charged with the offence of ‘pointing a weapon at somebody’. It is a necessary part of the training.
If you check DaveB‘s blog, above, you will see Maxima does not keep her gun loaded. She is pointing it, as a training exercise, conducted on military property, and pointed at a member of the military.
Of note, the soldiers, conducting exercises, are likely to do so with blank ammunition. Which is actually more hazardous than Maxima’s unloaded weapon. At no time was Sydney in any danger.
Courts do know how to apply common sense.
Not that it is ever likely to get there. I doubt anyone in the room is going to be complaining about making Halo a better police officer. Sydney included.
A valid point, up to a point.. Noting however that this IS a place and unit where people can shoot things much much worse than any bullet out of fingertips or eyes, or kill things with their minds, or melt stuff just by getting angry, or use magic, or be bulletproof, or any number of other things.
On that basis (comic strip humour aside), I MIGHT cut her some slack, since they are probably still rewriting all of the rules to deal with all of that.
Its stupid because there can be accidents (forgot a bullet where the gun would go off .
Which is not a Problem for superfast maxima .
Coincidentially even for Archons lawer its no problem sticking loaded guns in civilian faces
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/335
Shh!
Don’t bring that incident up. This one is easy to argue. That one… let us hope it does not get out that it was an Archon member shooting at Sydney. We can make a case, to defend them, but it would not be as easy as Arianna was making out. She got a good roll on her bluff there.
I kinda understand the idea that superheroes are less scary than guns in a world where people aren’t used to super heroes. I kinda doubt that guns would serve as more of an intimidation factor in a world where they’re a familiar presence, though.
I mean, if the goal is to project a sense of threat, then pointing a gun is always going to be scarier than pointing a finger, but that’s not the point, is it? The point is to project a sense of *danger*, and Maxima does that all on her own very well.
I’d say a sense of *threat* is exactly the point.
Trouble is that world is not used to supers yet. And Maxima will not always have a convenient firing range to make a demonstration that her finger is like a cannon. Nor will Halo, with her Christmas Tree ornament. If they are in a corridor, outside of somebody’s apartment, for example, they have nothing safe they can shoot at, in order to give a warning shot.
So they will just be pointing a finger or holding a red orb. That does not convey any threat.
Do bear in mind that the message which they have to carry is’ I WILL KILL YOU, unless you cease being a danger.’ And it must do so at first glance. Guns do that job.
Reminds me of something from Baron and Rude’s “Nexus” – energy blaster hero is angrily accusing villain of something or other and points at her while ranting (like you do). Her response is “It’s rude to point. Especially when you point.”
Go to any gun range in the U.S. and try that stunt and see what happens.
At a civilian range, the range master will have drawn their weapon and have it pointed at you.
If you are lucky they will tell you to secure the weapon IMMEDIATLY and then you will wait for the police to come and take your stupid ass to jail.
If you are unlucky you might here the shot that kills you legally as the range master is acting in defense of another person.
If this were to occur at a police range all the above an occur.
And if its a military range odds are you will be shot without warning, and if you survive once you recover enough you will be court martialed and spend the next 10+ years in prison.
And Dave there is NO such thing as sufficient rank to cover any one in the military ass if they pulled a stunt like that.
because you can bet every cent you have their are cameras covering every inch of that range.
And if an accusation was to be made Max would be out on her ass in a heartbeat.
Superpowers change the equation. Should she also be in trouble for pointing her finger at Sydney? By any measure that was more dangerous. But then do we reprimand Max any time she points her finger at a civilian? What about Heatwave or Jiggawatt, who can kill things without even pointing at them?
Do so in a threating manner, YES.
It is the same as pointing a weapon at a person. and if you look at my first post you will see I said she did it TWICE.
So according to you, each and every actor in crime, cop and spy dramas need to be incarcerated for doing such things repeatedly.
Let me guess, you are one of those who is perfectly alright with the various arrests of grade schoolers for making “threatening” signs, symbols or objects – aka pop tart gun etc.
So get off that high horse – you are showing all the classic signs of Hypoxia.
max has already caught a bullet without any trouble.
even if it did fire she would be able to catch it, or redirect it before it even leaves the barrel.
that what “change the equation” mean.
whatever it is in the real world, here, superpowers can make an issue a non issue, and a non issue into an issue.
also, rank maybe doesn’t justify that, but really… super powers.
she is the most powerful super known. not only it would be difficult to “take her down” but it would also be a HUGE loss to them.
and if supers were to see archon as in generic movie military, it may turn into a disaster so they are really cautious about dealing with them (again, Maxiam especially).
I agree that this stunt would be very bad in real life, but DaveB is trying to create a work of fiction that also includes some over the top situations played for humor.
Would everyone who made this point be happy if he added a disclaimer at the bottom of the comic stating something along the lines of “Do not try this at home. This is a violation of basic gun safety rules and you could possibly lose your job and/or go to jail.”
We may also need to call the publishers at DC to do the same because on an almost daily basis Batman is guilty of violation of traffic laws, illegal wiretap, breaking and entering, assault, kidnapping, and extortion.
Yeah, basically this. I started to post in my comment about how this demonstration might be slightly counter productive since they might have to doubly reinforce never pointing a gun at someone for any reason than you’re probably going to shoot them, but… yeah, the page is played for humor, and the improper gun safety will have to wait to be addressed on another page.
Counterproductive ?
Just consider what effect it can have on the trust and repore she is trying to build with Sydney .
If a superior officer just put a gun in my face, I know that I would start questioning their fitness to be in command.
And also whether they need a discharge for mental issues.
I suspect the rangemaster is going to rip her a new one for that.
And the general.
Peggy is the rangemaster. She okayed it since it was to illustrate a point to a recruit they’re nervous about handing a gun to in the first place.
Plus, if nothing else, if the gun was somehow loaded with Maxima being unaware of it and an invisible telekenetic who happened to be lurking in the firing range pulled the trigger, Max could still catch the bullet before it got halfway to Sydney. Wouldn’t be great for Sydney’s hearing but I’ve already established the Doc can fix that. :)
Would she really be able to catch it? She wasn’t able to dodge fear vomit, so unless she keeps her speed buffed while guns are out she might not be ready for it.
Presumably when she’s doing something like this, she’s feeding more power into her speed, so she’d be specifically ready to act.
Flinging her hand out to grab a bullet that is probably going near the speed of sound would definitely break Mach 1 and cause a local mini-boom of its own.
If you used “standard” physics, then probably yes, but keep in mind we are using “super” physics. Its not quite marvel lvl but still.
As far as we know maxima has a permanent field of force around her.
We have seen it able to reap though objects as though as V.
i think it wouldn’t be too difficult for her to move the air particles to where her hand is no longer, to ease the pressure on where her hand is going to be.
also, since she is able to react while in super speed, i don’t think it would be too much of a stretch that she may be able to do some small adjustment to her time rate.
What is the problem? Maxima would just move her hand forward, and use it to block the sonic boom from reaching Sydney.
What? *innocent look*
Judging by the art, halfway to Sydney would be… 3/4 of the way down the barrel. Well, Maxima likely wouldn’t catch it there, but I guess she would block the end of the barrel, anyway.
Given the size of the round that thing apparently fires, I doubt it’s possible for Max to aim it at someone (or something) and not know that it’s loaded. Simply due to the weight.
Main issue for Synd and a hand gun is that she needs something she can drop without it misfiring. if she holding gun but she needs fly and shield ASAP re-holstering the gun could cost her seconds. Also most likely a good idea to use that ammo that they give air marshals so if there is a misfire inside the shield there’s no chance it coming back and hitting her.
Syd doesn’t have much to worry about there – any gun made during her lifetime is pretty much impossible to fire by dropping it.
I’m sorry Sydney but I’m not fooled. I know that you clued-in fast and went with it for comedic effect. You are after all the girl who pretended to sneak up on herself so she could hit herself in the head.
Carrying a gun as a ‘superhero’ makes sense if you want to up your efficiency in injuring/killing your foes. For example, Spidey would have had a lot less trouble with his super-powered villains if he’d have carried a gunand shot them… obviously that’s not what the character is about, but you get the point.
Um, why are there panties on the target dummy?
…. Because his bra is at the cleaners.
That’s a male jockstrap.
With two rather unnervingly-precise bullet holes strategically-positioned…
Because girls use this firing range, and one of them wanted to make a point.
Or somebody thought it would be funny.
And guys are more likely to have them available, for an impromptu prank.
I don’t get it.
Try readinvg comments made by others, AND what the author says..
Additionally, I’m almost surprised that Sydney didn’t try to pull Maxima’s finger. She is quite the tomboy at time.
I feel like this would work better if the pointing and the shooting was reversed.
Max points at Sidney, she doesn’t know what to make of it.
Max blows up the back wall of the shooting range. Sidney says that’s just proving her point.
Max points gun at Sidney, she flips out (or the table, same difference). Sidney is convinced.
Agreed. But the comedy would have slightly less impact.
So, for those people who get it, as is, it works best this way. For other folks though, you have a good point. Less confusion = more laughs.
But, they will get it when they have a re-read. And it still makes me laugh when I do that.
We carry guns because brain does not process that fingers explode things, but brain DOES process that gun makes holes.
“Fingers Don’t Kill People, Supers With Fingers Kill People.” ;)
Real guns don’t make any noise when you unholster and draw them. I know that this particular nitpick is mostly applicable to TV crime dramas like Castle (LOVE that show, though) but any “clack” or “click” or in this case “chack” noise only exists for dramatic effect, and there’s no real firearm that makes random intimidating noises based on how they’re held. Granted, this is a superhero comic so it really falls under artistic license, but it’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine.
“Holster” is a nonomatopoeia, basically a shortcut that describes what would take too many panels to illustrate or animate.
Oh you mean the “chack” sound… Hmm, you may have given me an idea for a gag.
One of the running gags in Mansion of E is that, if something opens with a “CLUNK”, when it eventually closes, the sound will be “UNCLUNK”.
And the same applies for any other sound effect, for something with a reversible action.
Yeah, it’s sort of like how,in a car-chase scene, the cars are squealing tires on the curve of a dirt road! The only way to get wheels to squeal like that is either
A) Edit in some sound effects
B) Keep the wheels seriously out of alignment, which would increase the risk of the stunt driver.
I thought the “chack” was her pulling back the hammer on the gun
I assumed that it was her opening and reclosing the gun because, even though she knew the gun was empty, she was going to make double damn sure before she pointed it at a friendly.
Many modern holsters do have clasps that must be popped to allow a weapon to be drawn. Many older holsters are made with hardened leather, which does indeed have a bit of an auditory profile if you draw something out of it fast enough to be indelicate. The sound out get wouldn’t be ‘chack’, but it would be something.
Noting too that Max flies. So it seems to me that having some sort of safety clasp on her holster is a sensible precaution. Would be extremely awkward to have her pistol accidentally fall out, whilst she’s otherwise occupied at 10,000 feet.