Grrl Power #405 – Terrorportation
Super powered janitorial duty isn’t glamorous, but it’s a team effort. Sometimes you’re the striker, and sometimes you’re the guy painting the lines on the field. Or hosing down the bleachers.
There’s probably plenty of things Sydney could be doing at a construction site besides just sweeping and scooping, buuuut, someone needs to be doing it and she is still just a recruit.
Unfortunately for Sydney, Jiggawatt can’t use the radio when she’s arc-stepping (not to be confused with ArcSTEP, Archon’s dance division, which totally exists). In some ways, Jiggawatt is a better teleporter than Harem. She can take slightly more (inanimate) mass with her, but she needs line of sight, or at least an indirect path, as she can jump into then through several sufficiently large/dense clouds before coming back down. A single arc-step is about as fast as Harem, but each extra bounce adds time, and Harem can potentially go much further in a single ‘port.
I guess Sydney’s wrist comp was making her arm sweaty, so she took it off. ¬.¬
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I wonder if Varia’s gestalt can amp Halo’s powers?
No, but it does allow her to use Sydney’s orbs, which makes me wonder how much hand contact is required to activate that ability.
Theoretically, anyway. All we know for sure so far is that when the orbs orbit them both when the two women hold hands.
I looked back at that comic, the expanded orbit could have been Sydney keeping the orbs from smacking Varia in the face. I guess we will see.
Possibly none if we are right and when they realize it perhaps the can lock elbow (in sleeveless shirts) and get 4 orbs going at once.
I’m skeptical that varia gestalts orb control with Sydney, though I’d considered it. The sum of my logic is “what would her gestalt have been *before* Sydney found the orbs?” I mean, I guess it could change, but it would be kind of weird. Unless Sydney’s real power actually is dice karma, and the orbs are just part of that. (Speaking of, has anyone read “ringworld” one of the characters is pretty much that, except they call it psychic luck, and it’s pretty damn powerful.)
It could be that Sydney was always the only one who could use the orbs and that theyhappened to come to her when they did. Or maybe her power is the ability to use any unfathomable artifacts she comes across(not even dabbler had any idea how they work) alternatively she could have minor probability warping powers as you suggest.
Oh, so something like an in-built ‘Use Any Tool’ power? That’d actually be neat- it could easily be some sort of a mystic boon placed on her family in the past, which would be why she doesn’t have the Exemplar trait.
So you say Sydney’s control over the orbs could be genetic? Interesting. Maybe she should research her family history & local history near where she found them, see if her bloodline were in the area the same time as a “orb using hero/heroine” was around…
That said, I think there are some people already doing that, with access to ancient hero data, so maybe they should have been family heirlooms, but their user died while rescuing people off a wrecked ship?
Teela Brown. She supposedly got her luck from the birth rights lottery being jiggled in her family’s favor for generations. Bred for luck. I never bought that though. If you think of the odds of a particular egg and sperm coming together and producing an adult who then makes that happen again with someone else who is also the result of the same process, and repeat for generations, you find that the odds against each of us existing is probably 1x the number of atoms in the universe. Compare that to the mere billions of people involved in a lottery. And whenever someone tells me that they can’t swim I point out to them that they out-swam millions of competitors for the right to exist at all!
The odds against one specific person being born are much higher than the odds against any birth, if that makes sense.
It’s like flipping 100 coins.
If 1 in five times you don’t catch the coin then there’s still a 4 in 10 chance for heads or tails and a 8 in 10 chance for either heads or tails. There was probably going to be about the same number of individuals in a generation, as improbable as your specific gene combination might have been.
Also, just because a trait is genetic doesn’t mean that every cell expresses it. Just because one particular gamete has a gene for luck doesn’t mean that that gamete is lucky.
I only found it unbelievable that they ‘bred’ her in mere ten generations, or so. I think it should take way more, like 50.
Wait, you have no problems believing someone has ‘magical luck powers’, but you find it difficult to believe they could selective-breed those powers in just 10 generations? o_O
*RINGWORLD SPOILER*
They *thought* that was her power. Turns out it was the luck of everyone else who had won the lottery and it was all plotting against her…
Since her geshtalt with syd lets her use the orbs…. Maybe (go back and look at when they tried it the orbs start circling both of them)
There’s a lot we don’t know about Halo’s power to start with. Maybe Varia can control the two mystery orbs? Maybe she can make them do other things – or she cant effect them at all.
Or maybe we’ll find out the orbs don’t exist at all, that making people think they exist and cause powers is really Sydney’s actual power!
How come Harem didn’t invoke a power in whatzername?
She did. Harem can’t normally teleport people.
Point….
Harem normally can’t ‘port with anything that’s alive either…Nor with anything more than about 50 lbs. maximum. Harem’s weight limit does include even the clothes she’s wearing. Even though her ‘porting weight limit does increase with the fewer bodies she has “manifested,” that 50 lbs. I mentioned is when there’s only one Harem anyway; with all of her bodies out, each body has a ‘porting weight limit of about 25 lbs.
This put a question in my mind–what happens if Harem (perhaps unwittingly?) attempts to port too much mass at once, or even something living? I can see multiple possibilities:
1: She teleports, but her limit is ‘enforced’, with randomly selected material over the weight limit being discarded.
2: Similar to 2, but at the moment of teleportation, she is able to discern the various masses, and can elect which to leave behind. This comes with a possible additional option to manually abort the teleport attempt.
3: The teleport just fails, and she has to figure out what to ditch to get under her weight limit. This also has a variant where she potentially feels strain, the same way Sydney seems to be feeling wrist-strain from using the light hook to heft so much weight at once.
And now I’ve got other questions popping up in my head:
Can Harem get pregnant when she’s in multi-mode? If so, can she re-merge, and is condensed form still pregnant? If she’s in single mode and gets pregnant, can she split, and are the copies all pregnant? Could she give birth to sextuplets that way? Could a pregnant Harem (be she just one of them, or all of them) still teleport (she can’t take any living matter other than herself…)?
Actually, combined with the first question, this raises an odd story possibility–one of the Harems suddenly can’t re-merge with the others and cannot teleport, and when she goes to the doc to find out why, she discovers that she’s pregnant. Shouldn’t have slept with that guy with fertility powers….
Pregnancy tends to screw with self-targeting powers in general, particularly shapeshifting. The fate of the baby tends to vary a lot depending on the details of a power. Even so, I think we can make some assumptions:
For the purposes of powers, a fetus likely does count as part of the mother’s body because other foreign bodies count as well, such as gut bacteria. Otherwise your teleporter would leave behind a splatter of bio-material with every teleport and would generally suffer health problems, as it turns out our bodies make quite heavy use of symbiotic microbes.
Harem doesn’t really merge forms. She has 5 bodies and can have a variable number of them ‘deployed’ at a time, the strength of each body decreasing with each additional body in play. I suspect that if she dismissed her pregnant body the child would simply go with for the reason I listed above, in which case her baby would be in stasis as long as that body is. If it didn’t… well, that would make for a very dark turn to this story indeed.
First, only one Harem would get pregnant – the others would still be able to ‘port. However, the preg one may not be able to – perhaps totally, perhaps not without risking the baby. This would reduce Harem’s total strength and upper port limit.
If she can ‘port, would ‘unporting’ prevent the child from coming to term?
On an unrelated note, what would happen if Varia rode along with Harem – when she ‘unports’?
This is where my mind went this way as a substory. Harem actually has 6 bodies, but she unteleported one a shortly after she got her powers pretty much permanently as it got pregnant as a teenager, and she didn’t want to tell her parents, she’s kept the young body and the child hidden so long that while being adult and responsible enough to deal with it, she’s now scared of the consequences of revealing her “younger sister”
There is no “merge,” which makes the question about merging irrelevant.
“Sidecar” power XD
What does she get from Math, the power to see through solid objects? :P
She gets algebra powers.
Hah hah that would frustrate him so much.
Would it frustrate him more if it let HIM see through solid objects too? He’d know that it’s possible but Varia wouldn’t let him use it for what he wants it for (I think).
I think it’d be funniest if it didn’t amplify his powers because he doesn’t have any powers to amplify further. We’d be stuck with Math only thinking 6 steps ahead and completely forgetting steps 4-6 upon separation.
Or maybe it lets him see through solid objects and she lets him use it freely… and it’s like that X-ray photo in the women’s locker room.
(The medical staff might become fond of the two of them, and train him in x-ray diagnosis.)
Which reminds me of the Superman spoof comic where one character is talking to Clark Kent and mentions how odd it is that all the women at the Daily Planet got breast cancer.
Don’t believe her Gestalt powahs allow the donor any benefits: Var gains electric powers, not Jigs
The other person causing the Gesault is immune to the power, so if Varia could see through things as if they weren’t there, Math would not gain that power too. Actually, I’m wondering if she’d be able to see through his clothes or into his body with it, considering the “other half of power is immune” part.
LOL I can see Varia gaining that power with Math, looking through a few guy’s clothes, Math wishing & hating that he doesn’t get it too, only for Varia to try using it on Math & seeing….his clothes. No matter how hard she tries, it has no effect on Math, because he’s the donor…
Then my processor goes down the “telekenetically move things, including remove clothing” line, with similar results…
Varia’s ability hasn’t been stated to effect others. In fact, it’s been said almost exactly the opposite of that.
Hey Dave, question about Harem’s powers:
1) She can’t teleport with anything living. Does that mean that when picks up a chunk of steak and teleports, it arrives completely sterile because she left all the bacteria behind?
2) How is her weight limit determined? If she’s shackled to a wall, is the wall counted against her limit?
3) What does her power consider an object? If she’s holding two boards that have been nailed together, is that one object or two?
I know you didn’t ask me, so my apologies for butting in.
I think the answer to questions one and three are the same. It’s not about how many things she’s carrying or whether their alive, but about the total mass or weight she’s trying to move. If she teleported with your steak, I suspect the bacteria would still be there. As for question two, she would probably be teleporting herself away from the wall and the shackles and so, since she wouldn’t be taking it along, no it wouldn’t count.
Can remember reading a book couple decades ago (either early 90’s or late 80’s) about a teleporter: at one stage he is attempting to help free some prisoners, including one chained to a wall, he tries to ‘port them out of the chains but ends up bring the chains and part of the wall with them (which is vastly preferable than the alternative), he succeeds in getting them out of the chains with the second attempt
Teleporting two objects apart like the boards example would, in role playing terms,be a power stunt, i.e. she’d have an easier chance trying to teleport the nails out from the boards than separating one board from the other, but it would take concentration and might not work without making several tries.
Would be one heck of a Brick Joke!
Some people claim that you can tell Jiggawat is about to appear by the smell of ammonia. But further investigation suggests that scent turns up after her arrival.
… Along with significantly increased requirement for fresh pants.
ammonia?.. you sure you didn’t mean Ozone instead?
No, Ammonia, and urea…. maybe a little methane
Methane, like other alkanes, is odourless to humans. However, it is often accompanied by certain thyols and benzene-based aromatics, which definitely have noticeable odours.
or bean burritos…
Not if ya pi$$ yaself because of a lightning strike 3 feet from ya
Go go magnet mojo! Manipulate those steel beams!
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1751
Nice memory.
Hmm… Two minds controlling the orbs… perhaps it just doubles their power? 16 tons becomes… 32 tons. Still ****ed on the “Aww man only…” route.
I read that comment in the Power rangers theme. I was not displeased.
I read it in Don Adams’ voice.
That proximity to Jigg jumping in makes me cringe for anyone’s eardrums in the near vicinity. Lightning struck while my family and I were driving and it hit about 20-30ish feet away… we were all rendered temporarily deaf for about a good 5 min or so.
Jigg’s arc-step is probably MUCH less powerful than a real lightning strike.
Is it carrying the energy of a 100 lb person inside it? Because then it would hold 9.743502844* 10^34 Megatons.
… That’s more than all our nukes btw
According to what I’ve read, a temporary violation of conservation of mass+energy is theoretically okay – but it must be undone!
Jiggawatt transforming into a forty-five-digits-too-small* energy blast, and then transforming into her regular-mass self again, is consistent with that interpretation. The lightning bolts she throws at other targets could be drawn from ambient energy.
* 10^34 megatons, peel off forty-five digits, you’re down to under a tenth of a pound. In this case just barely under. (Assuming I counted the decimal places correctly.)
:/ I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. Mass can be temporarily turned into energy or theoretically vise versa but you have to conserve between the two at all times.
I think I found the background thing.
The yellow Parking Block in panels 4, 5, and 8 could only have come from the restaurant parking lot considering that the ground it is sitting on is dirt. Apparently one of those projectiles landed in the work area, and now must be removed with the rest of the debris.
And there is another (different) one in the first panel. One of those ‘villains’ must have missed a few times.
Very likely, more than one ‘villain’ missed more than once.
Arianna must not be in charge of handling the debris from the cleanup. The stuff is just being dumped in the trash rather than being set aside and resold as official superhero battle souvenir artifacts.
Hehe, where do you think the dumpster is going.
Must be the one that Syndey smacked out of the air with the Lighthook when Breakpoint was lobbing it at Hiro
Looks to me like Sydney’s cleaning up in the former restaurant’s carpark, picking up the debris from the fight. They did kinda end up leveling the building…
Is Sydney holding her wrist in panel 2? It looks like she has some physical feedback from the
molestorblighthook after all. Either that or she’s getting RSI. Either way is something to be worried about down the track.Probably a bit of both. We’ve seen her using BOTH hands when trying to lift heavy loads, and speaking as someone who has chronic tendinitis of the wrists, gripping something for a long time can put a strain on those tendons.
Remember kids, video games are a lot of fun, but good posture and frequent breaks will save you a lot of pain 20-30 years down the road.
If she’s lifting 16 tons, there should be minimal feedback (otherwise she’s wicked strong!) So when it exceeds her weight limit, she (being Sydney) is still trying to get it to move (both hands). She probably strained something trying to lift girders or Maxima, or even the day before yesterday with Vehemence.
Yup. I’m guessing there’s gonna be a SOP for Jiggawatt, wherein she has to call in a warning, with a countdown, or she has to appear a certain distance away, so as to ease the “shock” of her sudden, and very loud appearance. In a combat situation, appearing suddenly and loudly near an ally can induce friendly fire, and it would be her own fault, plus, it would be a pretty stupid epitaph for her tombstone, “Made the mistake of surprising a battle-stressed Maxima and got her face punched out the back of her skull.”
I think a more likely result is PPO/ Lighthooked Sydney does have the initiative bonus…
Sydney’s PPO currently has a safety that she has to switch off, whereas Max is very fast, and can be in super-fast mode during combat. Although Sydney could get a nose-punch in…
Another bad move might be if Archon was having a weekend party and everyone was lounging in the pool. Jiggawatt is late and decides to save time by arcing directly into the pool.
“Hey guys, I’m here! Hello? Are you guys all asleep? And did someone start the barbeque? I smell something cooking.”
Superhero Stew?
Mmmmmm…Simmer a few hours & serve warm. Soup is good food.
ArcSTep, Dance dept I had a mouth full of water when reading that….. lets just say I’m glad my computer screen is still working
What have we said about eating or drinking when reading Grrl Power? It has already been said many times.
New meaning to the term STEP it up.
Or for the purpose of intimidation, put a mean look on your face, look directly into the eyes of the nearest convenient supervillain, and say, “Let’s dance.”
I had a D&D character who used that line once. He actually WAS a dancer. Also a dual-wielding swordsman.
You know you are supposed to stick of your toung and show your genetic code marker be for you say “Let’s Dance” to someone in a fight. At least that is what Jeremy X and the Ballroom say.
I’m sure that soda she’s opening has something to do with thunder or lightning or something, right? I haven’t forgotten your running gag. :-) So whatsit say?
My guess is that it’s some sort of energy drink, as opposed to a regular soda. ;)
Tall thin can, bold colours, possible lightning bolt (the yellow). Definitely seems to fit.
Tall can could be a beer, but I see that as less likely.
There isn’t much else that comes in tall came is there?
It will be clearer on future pages.
Can I bet on it being Jiggawatt’s ARCSwat energy drink right now? Gives you a real charge.
Wrong character. It is Harem who has the ‘Prophetic Soda Selection’ power.
I suppose Jiggawatt can also arc-step through highly conductive objects, like power lines and the like?
I’m totally with Sydney here. I can enjoy the typical lightning storm light show, but that’s from the safety of my home or a building, looking at the window and enjoying the rain. Lots of electricity very loudly and very suddenly crackling next to you is definitely going to fray my nerves to pieces in no tme.
Not sure if someone brought this up before or not (cannot be bothered reading comments from past 2 pages), but, being on a building sight, wouldn’t Sydney (and everyone else) still need proper PPE? Including hard hats and hi-vis clothing (Hiro was wearing a vest, but in Victoria Australia, he’d be fined for not wearing a shirt by Worksafe.
Even though they are military, would Archon still need proper training and certification to enter a worksite? In Australia, you need a white-card/ construction induction certificate to allow you top enter a construction site, let alone work on one.
And going back to Worksafe, who are the occupational health and safety watchdog in Australia, how would an inspector deal with this sort of setup? Victoria is really strict with OHS regulations, and Worksafe inspectors can show up at any time, and can access any site where you have employees, to inspect the premises. And the fines can be enormous.
Yes, one could argue that Max is impervious to almost anything, but inspectors are hardly going to have a list to say what Supers can and can’t do, and not all supers are as tough as Max, without her shield up, a falling beam could still crush Sydney.
Of course, many people would say that supers should still follow the regulations, if for no other reason than to set an example to the non supers. That said, I could still see a non super construction worker see Hiro lifting something, figure, he I bet I could do that, try, throw his back out, and apply for a WorkCover claim.
Basically, standard regulations would be thrown into chaos as the bureaucrats try to adapt for the new variables
I’m surprised that the site isn’t being picketed. How many construction workers is ARCSwat putting out of work here?
As was pointed out previously, ARC is just cleaning up it’s mess, and getting the construction back on time, which should make the tax-payers quite happy.
Absolutely no workers would have an issue with it as their payment is entirely based on time. ARCSwat is literally putting money into their pockets by getting the work done faster than they could and without charging them for it.
The workers would have no issue, but the Union Boss would find something to complain about (& then try to charge their clients more or find something to file a lawsuit).
Perhaps they are just off screen, but in cases like “Habitat for Humanity” you have a lot of uncertified labor under the supervision of people who have trained and been certified for this. I’m picturing people standing back a little bit telling them where to put things and how to put them and then coming in to make connections while stuff that would normally take days to set up is done in minutes. Though OSHA (Occupational Health & Safety Association) might say something about not doing it the prescribed “safe” way.
This topic was discussed in the last page, especially regarding Sydney’s squishiness and ADHD.
Well to answer your question, yes, probably. The hi-vis clothing certainly, though an argument could be made that hard hats aren’t necessary for some of team members. I just didn’t think about it while drawing these pages.
I’m pretty sure the hard hat is softer than most of the ARCSwat members heads. It would result in them limiting their field of vision for no benefit. It’d be like putting on a pair of gloves to type. Pointless.
How come they don’t have the old style anymore, the kind that resemble the old WWII British military helmet, but not as ‘smooth’?
And now I can’t help think about some asshat starting a protest because the “supers are stealing our jobs!”.
Arc probably already thought of that, and is paying for a paid vacation for the workers for one week.
After all, as I understand it’d be a drop in the bucket compared to what they’re paying arc members, and it’d mitigate a potentially bad PR backlash.
Steve Rogers: What’s the matter, scared of a little lightning?
Loki: I’m not overly fond of what follows…
[Thor appears]
My wife used to be scared of thunder during a storm. For some reason, it was little consolation to her that, if you hear the thunder, the lightning has already struck…which means it already missed ya’!
O.o
Hey, if the Russian army can have the Alexandrov Ensemble, I see no reason why there couldn’t be an ArcSTEP dance division… x)
Does Sydney have to let go of her HentORB? Or was she just taking a smoko?
Sydney does not smoke. Mind you if she is smoking, please help put her out.
You don’t actually have to smoke to take a smoko, it’s just that’s what those breaks used to be called
I’m guessing you’re Aussie Guesticus? I think smoko is more an Aussie thing…
Probably doesn’t have to let go, she could just unwind it, but letting go obviously dissipates the lighthook, plus it looks like all that orb use is hurting her wrists…
Wash your mouth out with dingo excrement! Not an Aussie, and proud of it :P
Def Kiwi. Only people so proud to not be Aussie.
That’s because only kiwis know what it’s really like to be an Aussie, without actually being one :P
Ah, so a Kiwi living in Oz? Fair enough. Apparently a bit of friendly rivalry between the 2, sounds like it makes things interesting for you lot at times. Daniel the Human says to say “Perth Wildcats”, whatever that means. I’d say it’s a sport thing, but he’s not big on sports either, so I don’t know…
Nope, never been across the Ditch
Not sure if you could call it ‘friendly’ rivalry, more a case of jealous sour sportsmanship from them; we used to have a regional netball competition, Australia saw that and noted that it was making our national squad better, but, instead or forming their own league, they foist themselves upon us, forcing us to cut the number of our teams, an, if that wasn’t bad enough, when they found themselves still outclassed they turned netball into a full contact sport!!
Sydney was probably like, “Dang wrist phone, no way am I breaking it the day after I got it. I had to replace more iphones that way…”
Last panel, I take as indicatiing just how quickly Sydney is settling into the team.
I was taking it as showing off Sydney’s “lightning” quick reflexes.
She’s still got some practice & training to do before her reflexes can accomplish something useful, but she has reflexes at the start…That can be trained.
Honestly using your super powers at a construction site to fix stuff sounds really fun. It might be a fun video game concept, like Viscera Cleanup Detail but with concrete rubble and super-strength.
Years ago Marvel revealed a company called Damage Control as a thing. Mostly Baselines (slines!) but they had a few Supers as well. They did cleanup and reconstruction for superpowers battles. Kind of a fun comic.
If she doesn’t do the menial tasks, she won’t level up.
At least her stat grinding if more effort than whatever she was doing before signing up with the team, so maybe faster leveling up?
Are those prescription sunglasses Sydney is wearing?
Probably, as she is near-sighted.
Assuming those are the same ones she from Maxima, then probably not. Certainly there was no mention of their being prescription back then.
Actually, if I remember correctly, DaveB has said that she’s far-sighted.
She wears her glasses while driving, which is more often required when you are near-sighted. I am far-sighted; I need my glasses to read. If I wear them while driving, everything gets fuzzy.
What was in that can? Is it another one of those sodas that predict the future?
Jolt Cola perhaps?
I really want to see the ARCStep team
BTW, in the USARMY, new recruits are never left unsupervised. Not sure why super recruits, with the potential for causing greater mischief, are being left to their devices.
It’s kinda hard for recruits to sweep wrong. In addition this is just another “in the bag” situation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ol28kPTqa4
Ummm…Don’t be too sure of that. If Boot Camp teaches recruits anything, it’s that there’s 3 ways to do anything: the right way, the wrong way & the military way. Regardless of whether or not the military way is also right or wrong, if you do it in any other way, it’s wrong.
And there’s never enough time to do it right, but there’s always time to do it over…
“Cheaters never prosper”? Guess they forgot that the other bears cheated, and prospered
Not to mention, Ranger Buttlick cheated by making up that bogus rule because he was too fat and lazy to do his job!!!
It is not how they are sweeping the floor that is the issue, it is how they will look for a way to cut corners so that they have free time to do something stupid, and new recruits can sure think up some stupid things to do if they are not kept busy and watched closely.
It doesn’t even have to be stupid things. Doing nothing at all is a cherished activity for a recruit.
Army recruits per year is about 75,000 and have people devoted to nothing else. They’re experts at it.
ARCSwat currently has five. (And Harem.) It looks like none of those in charge are Drill Instructor trainers, but are doing split duties. They’re doing what they can.
If Varia is from Boston,wouldn’t it be shocking to learn that her mother speaks with a Texas accent?
Believe her mother is Mexican
Aztec is not Mexican, but accents are about where you were raised and not your genetic heritage, but what’r ya gonna do?
Sydney seems a little… shocked.
/duck
But the neck comm wasn’t making her sweaty? :p
It’s uh… wicking.
Nah, Maxima probably chewed her out for trying to take it off.
I wonder how the Elemental of Surprise looks like.
They wear spanish outfits and carry medieval weapons, obviously.
Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam.
Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam. Spam.
Nobody expects the Spammish Repitition.
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise!… Surprise and fear… fear and surprise… Our two weapons are fear and surprise… and ruthless efficiency! Our three weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency… and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope… Our four… no… Amongst our weapons… Hmf… Amongst our weaponry… are such elements as fear, surpr… I’ll come in again.
Different *every* time!
In its raw form, a jester’s head on a spring, But, it shapeshifts.
OHAI SYDNEY!
Poor Sydney’s heart is gonna give out at an early age at this rate. Every time she fires a gun, every time Harem teleports in, every time Jiggawatt shows up, etc. I imagine eventually she might get used to it, but it seems like she’s still having trouble.
At least she can focus on Maxima’s hair not being upright.
She “what” the foreman?
Sydney is suggesting that her Gestalt Power, when holding the Foreman’s hand, Would allow her to move overpass beams with the power of her mind.
Sydney should lighten up someday. I’d think it’d be real cool if someone just appeared as a bolt of lightening, so long as I wasn’t electrocuted in the process.
She just needs time to get used to it. It’s only been a couple of days now and it looks like she’s already gotten used to Harem’s comings and goings, but a gigantic lightning bolt smacking the ground just a few feet in front of her might take a little more time.
I think you might have a different opinion if you were a member of the team out on a mission working in the bomb disposal unit.
She thinks it’s cool, it just startled the hell out of her.
Either is is a message of some deep mystical connection, or totally a coincidence, but Varia’s top and side hair colors are a very close match to the trim and side colors of Sydney’s car.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/196
Anybody else want an ArcSTEP side-series now? Or just this entire comic to become about defeating supervillains with dance?
And they would start each battle with their catch phrase “Let’s get ready to Rumba!!”
Not at all.
However while Harem is appearing with Conan O’brien and Sydney is appearing with Kelly Ripa, I suppose someone can be on Dancing With The Stars. I wonder which of them would be best for that . . .
I’m gonna vote for Math. The martial arts help make you graceful, light on your feet, and well coordinated, right?
Well, you’d think so, but martial arts focuses on starting with well-thought out moves & practicing them until they become a matter of reflex action, as good as being second-nature. It’s pretty much the same with learning dance moves.
I think the only dance steps that would interest Math would be doing the Horizontal Bop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iajE65RRpk
Syd: ARC-DANCE OFF! Oh yeah! Top THIS!
Villain: Wha…? What are you doing? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?
Syd: Duh, I’m distracting you!
If Varia really can use Sydney’s orbs, that might answer a lot of questions about how the orbs work. As far as we know they only work for Sydney, BUT the skill tree suggests that the abilities Sydney has aren’t the full range that the orbs have, so seeing a second person activate them might reveal interesting things about what parts of their abilities are limits on the orbs and what parts are limits on Sydney. For instance, might Varia get a different strength level from the lighthook? Different sight abilities from the telepresence orb? A different top speed/acceleration from the fly ball?
I’m probably wrong, but this is my guess for where Dave is going with the next page.
The skill tree also suggests that someone else had them before Sydney.
The first season of Heroes, Peter had the “copy powers” ability, but his real gift was thinking about those powers and suggesting new ways to try using them to various others. He often was more creative in how he thought about the powers. He completely lost this gift in subsequent seasons, often choosing dumb solutions rather than smart solutions (new writers, not that creative, I guess)
I can’t recall him actually using variants on the base power until after the other person had either heard his suggestion or had actually tried his suggestion. Assuming that actually went down, his powers would grow as the source expanded their power set and ONLY when they did. Which is kind of a cool limitation.
Varia reminds me of a more limited (and therefore more interesting, at least to me) version of Synch, from one of the X-titles. I got the impression his copied powers were weaker but he had finer control over them. Anyone able to confirm on that, or was I way off base on that?
Can also remember one time when Emma Frost gained Bobby’s ice powers at some stage, she was able to do more with them than he had ever dreamed, at least until she showed him the potentiality of his powers
Kudos to Sydney, for having the right reaction when a loud explosion goes off nearby. “Hit the dirt!”
Seriously It should be regulation to just teleport somewhere AWAY from people then walk up to them like a normal person, you keep surprising people they’re going to be to jaded for when a real threat shows up.
Or you punched in the nose.
DaveB can we have ARCStep/ ARCCheerleaders as a voting bonus for this or next month? :D
You can sneak in cameos for patreon and fellow webcomic artists too. BONUS!
Can I just say I’m loving how accurate you are with Varia’s Boston accent? And this is coming from someone born and raised in the South End
He had to tone it down from when she first appeared :(
Speaking as a survivor of an inadvertent but very serious near-electrocution, I kind am on Sydney’s side here.
I’ve been close enough to a lightning strike to hear the leader and/or streamers, and I concur.
Having been on a RADAR tower when got hit I fully agree with Sydney. Lightning close to you is scary as it gets this side of actual ground combat.
I learned a very long time ago to be VERY respectful of how dangerous arcing electricity can be.
Clearly, in other parts of the multiverse, ARCstep is replaced with The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afn5x6I-BNA
TED talk here: https://www.ted.com/talks/the_lxd_in_the_internet_age_dance_evolves?language=en#t-41071
Well, clearly Jiggawatt is also qualified to do ARC-welding jobs…
I am shocked that you would resort to that level of humor.
At least she could get decent wages, charging by the hour.
…Granted, it wouldn’t be as much as her pay with ARCSwat, but still quite a bit better than minimum wage.
I guess Sydney’s wrist comp was making her arm sweaty, so she took it off. ¬.¬
She’s rubbing her wrist in panel 3. I move that the wrist comp is kinda uncomfortable, and was making her wrist hurt with all the back-and-forth of cleanup duty.
Isn’t she rubbing the wrong wrist though? Didn’t she wear it on her left wrist? o_O