Grrl Power #401 – Bat pact
Happy Leap Day! Watch out for men with gills in blue suits and boater hats!
Poor Sydney. I would probably cry too if someone made me exercise in the morning. It’s a rough way to start the day, especially for someone who usually stays up late at night reading comics, refreshing reddit, or playing an MMO slash chatting with guildies online. Oh, and despite asking around on twitter, “bootie” is apparently not real military slang. I guess pre-privates are usually just called recruits, but given the amount of slang deployed by the military in most cases, I was surprised “bootie” wasn’t already in their arsenal. So that’s 2 differences between our world and the Grrl-verse. Super powers, and calling people going through boot camp booties. Oh, and apparently aliens living on Earth. Three things. Super power, booties, aliens, fear and surprise…
I was going to have Peggy say (in panel 3) “It doesn’t do anyone any good to have you laid out for 6 weeks with a torn hammy.” but then there’s the team doctor that can heal trauma. I put her in the comic for a few reasons. One, I’ve joked in the past about how often superheroes get knocked out, and how they’d all have boxer palsy by issue 120, (or NFL-itis) well, the doc lets me get away with that stuff, cause she can fix concussions. (Within reason, not if someone gets their head caved in with a hammer) Two, I want there to be a risk of characters actually getting hurt in fights in other ways, like broken bones or stabs or burns or whatever, and let be back on duty within a few days without everyone needing healing factors, like the way nearly every character in a video game does these days. I mean, in Call of Duty if you take a shotgun to the face from 10 feet away, just hide for 4 seconds and you’re back at 100%. Wolverine doesn’t heal that fast barring bad writing. (One time in the Civil War arc, some guy blew him up so hard he was just a few chunks of meat on an adamantium skeleton, and he healed back to his full self in just a few panels. That’s just hilariously bad writing. Another time he basically reincarnated himself from just a drop of blood, skeleton and all, which sounds like bad writing, until you know that his blood splashed onto an Infinity Stone level artifact. That’s better writing.)
But I digress. My point is the doctor is mostly in the story so I can beat up on the characters without the refrigerator logic of “hey why aren’t they covered in scars” (Old timers like Cyclops and Spider-Man should look like badly stitched quilts by now) or “he got shot in the shoulder a week ago and now he’s holding a guy over a ledge with that same arm, I call BS” (Something that is impossible for someone without super strength to do anyway no matter what condition their bodies are in, but that’s a rant for another time… No, actually I’ll rant about it now)
Ok, so the classic “hold a guy over a ledge for info/terror” pose, or for that matter just lifting someone up by one arm is totally impossible. I’m talking straight armed. If your arm was right in front of you like you grabbed their collar and pulled them in for a scowl, a strong person could probably one arm someone off the ground like that. I know, Batman and guys like that are the peak of human capability, but still, nuh uh. For those of you who don’t know (probably most of you, come to think of it) I was into amateur bodybuilding for about a decade. Not competitively, nothing like that, but when I went to the gym, I went with the purpose of building muscle. I had a day dedicated just to shoulders, cause… I don’t know, I wanted big shoulders, I don’t need a reason. My military barbell press got up to about 200-210 (pounds), or 80-85 with dumbells, but for lateral and front raises, I topped out at 35-40 lbs. I could hold that weight out for a second, maybe 2 if I had to, but that’s it, 40 lbs. Now, I didn’t get into bodbuilding till I was 30, so there are plenty of guys bigger and stronger than me, so maaaybe there are guys out there who could do twice that. Maybe. But that’s still not cracking 100 lbs. Even if someone could do 3x that, it’s still not “adult male thug” weight. I saw a cover where Catwoman was doing it once. I’m sorry, but just… no. Try holding a gallon of milk straight out in front of you, see how long you can keep it up. Now do that with 20 gallons, and you’re approaching the low end of thug weight.
Anyway. They have a super doc on the team so it wouldn’t really matter if Sydney blew a hamstring, so I cut that line. Jesus, I need to up my ADD meds or something.
Edit: Due to several comments, I have added a mini comic to include Bill Finger in the Bat-genesis fold. :)
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It would seem to be counterproductive to train someone that hard, that fast. Don’t tell me about healing them each time. If healing can do that, why can’t it make you fit in the first place? It doesn’t seem like they’re trying to break her so they can remold her, so the amount of exercise seems absurd.
As far as dangling someone over an edge with one hand, I don’t think you should write it off that fast. Well, maybe for 200 lb guys, but not for small skinny people. At one time I could hold out 50 lbs for a while, although that was long ago. There were a lot of guys in the gym who were stronger, or at least much bigger than I was. (I didn’t look like a bodybuilder, or want to. I wanted to burn off the fat. The strength, energy, massive pigouts, cardio fitness, and the ability to run up stairs three at a time were mostly just extra benefits.) I’m sure there are people in the world who are several times stronger than I used to be.
My own ADD meds seem to be wearing off at the moment. I foolishly tried the milk jug trick. I forgot and held it off to the side, but I don’t think it makes all that much difference. After a minute I realized that I might make myself really sore tomorrow if I didn’t stop, since I’m older and out of shape now.
This kind of hero thing is all silly, but I remember back when the first Rocky movie came out, my brother, my father and I all trying out one arm push-ups when we got back. I wonder what we would have tried if it had been a GOOD movie?
The director of the commando movie with Schwarzenegger thought it was possible for him to do that for the scene where he holds sully above a ledge by ‘his weak arm’ – schwarzenegger quickly told the director it wasn’t possible… So the director had cranes installed to help :)
https://lebeauleblog.com/2015/10/04/totally-awesome-facts-you-need-to-know-about-commando/
They aren’t training her that hard. This first day was to see the limits. Now that they know, they’ll be able to slowly work to push up those limits with a custom training plan
While “Bootie” may not be military slang, Boot is the term the Marines use to describe those fresh out of Boot Camp and MOS training. Short for “My BOOTS have been in the Corps longer than you.”
Depending on exactly how a healing super power works it could actually be detrimental to an exercise program. Since an increase of muscle mass occurs as a reaction to torn muscle tissue a power that ‘resets’ the body to an undamaged state would negate all that hard work. But a power that accelerated the body’s own healing would retain the benefits. Hmm, in the latter case the only impediment to rapid physical improvement of your body would be how quickly you could consume and digest the foods necessary to fuel the healing. Push your limits for an hour, heal, rinse and repeat. I see many nutri-shakes in Sydney’s future if this healer works that way.
Speaking as a (relatively) out of shape geek, (not a nerd, don’t know anywhere near enough fandom stuff) I HAVE to go running in the morning, or I don’t do it. It’s the time when I have the most energy, and since I’m super sensitive to caffeine and an insomniac, it’s really the only time I can have enough caffeine to get me to get off my ass and go run 2 miles. If you’re wondering how that makes me out of shape, it’s because I used to run 3+ miles every day, but I put on tons of weight and I have asthma, so fuck it.
Bill Finger would actually be MORE acceptable because Bob Kane was a contemptible hack who literally stole creative credit for the character from him, and wouldn’t even acknowledge his work until years after his death.