Grrl Power #412 – How long can trusty Recruit Scoville hold out?
Ok this is one of those situations where the webcomic format is not ideal since you guys reading along as its posted can’t just turn the page. Obviously Max is pointing at one of the trinkets on the shelf I mentioned last page, so just bear with while this gets resolved.
Deus saying “lease” in the first panel is the result of some significant editing. Originally there was a tangent there about having to bribe and shoot his way to the coast. Shoot bandits, not so much the legal authorities, unless they go overboard with the bribery. Pirates he’s not so worried about. Aggressive, unregistered vessels in international waters make excellent targets for weapons tests. I liked the detail and the world building but ultimately there was too much dialog and I didn’t think he’d spell out the seedier side of his business foibles to Max.
And yes, in case you’re wondering, when Veridian Dynamics got cancelled went out of business, Deus scooped them right up. Weaponized pumpkins? That’s right up his alley. If you don’t get that reference, then you should check this out. Arrg. And if you can’t see that link for whatever reason, it’s a show called Better off Ted. It was all too short lived but I consider it one of the funniest things ever on TV. Not quite on the same echelon as Red Dwarf or Archer, but still way up there.
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‘The shiney, candylike red button..’ bedecked with icons of doom, but without so much as a plastic flip cover to shield the button from having something dropped on it, let alone pressed intentionally.
My money is its the labs ‘watermelon in a hydraulic press’ ala Buckaroo Banzai (and old school Battletech, for the few that read the paperback novels.. think it was the third in the ‘Warrior’ series)
Dave SAID they were hired from “Better Off Ted”.
And yes that is EXACTLY what Ted’s labs were like.
Haha, yes. The BattleTech example only existed to screw with the students though. :D
They killed off Team Banzai. I was most upset.
To be fair, we never learned what the purpose of the watermelon in the press was in the movie, either, so it ‘could’ have just been there for the same purpose. An interactive object lesson in not touching things you don’t understand.
Wonder how many lab monkeys (aka co-workers) they had to go through before everyone learnt the lesson: if it looks harmless, leave it alone or suffer terrible pain!!
So THAT explains who actually owns Veridian Dynamics! Deus!
No, apparently according to Mr DaveB’s under-comic bit, that company went belly up, Deus just hired them. After all, it’s fun to have a mad scientist or 2 hanging around…
…As long as you don’t piss them off, then it gets dangerous. I can tell you that from personal experience…
OMINOUS mechanical “whirring” behind Screwy.
waiting for sidney to blow up the lab in 3-2-1….no? ok.
and now im going back a page to stare at deus’s display case. wtf is she pissed about?
and omfg his face that… look…. lol
Case is on the opposite side of where she’s yelling er pointing at
Unless Deus moved his chair, no it’s not
My dad was an industrial chemist (now retired). I remember as a hyperactive, but inquisitive child going to the lab on a Saturday morning. First rule: Do not touch anything! If you want to look, go ahead, but looking does involve touching. Second rule: Do not bug Dad when he is working on some of the equipment (centrifuge, filter papers, mass spectrometer, viscometer, etc.). I thought that the mass spec was the most interesting. “How can you tell how much lead is in that sludge from those lines?”
Just now looking back at it I realize that Deus was subtly swiveling his seat sideways to reveal the collection behind him, that motion would draw the eye but not in a big way.
He really knows his showmanship.
Note: maxima says, “You do not want [Sydney] wandering around your labs for too long, EVEN WITH A CHAPERONE.” (emphasis added by me).
Remember, if you will, Syd was being escorted down there by Vale.
Panels 2 and 3 show our two transplanted scientists in the lab, and Sydney. No one else.
Where’s Vale?
2 possible answers:
1) She’s got that ‘disappearing from view until actually needed’ servant thing DOWN.
2) She’s in the bathroom, breathing deeply into a paper bag, after The Elevator Incident. A concentrated dose of Sydney does that to people.
At least Sydney hadn’t gotten a concentrated form of spice again
Seeing who two of the scientists are, truly don’t believe Sydney can’t do any worse than they do on an hourly basis :P
I ran out of time to add her. :/
3. Sydney ditched her and made a bi-line for the most interesting section of the lab.
You mean, she made a bee-line (which doesn’t make much sense either, if you have ever attempted to track a bee)
It does. It just depends on the bee. The scout bees tend to wander around a lot, until they find a patch of flowers, and decide to carry that news back to the hive. Once they convey the position, the regular bees will fly in a surprisingly straight line to the new flower patch, without seeming to make any reference to landmarks or the terrain. How they do this is still unknown, although it is worth noting that they don’t appear to fly about much on days when the sun isn’t shining.
Or, alternatively, you could just be talking about the first day of spring.
Hmmm, forgot about how the other bees travel after sitting through 3 hours of interpretive dance
I’m gonna be honest I SO want her to be flipping out about the dark crystal.
Nah, that would only be if it was a nerd-out, this is an anger flip-out: Deus has something personal of hers
Well, there was a green thing on the shelf that could be a mouth guard. Maybe it’s from when Maxima was still a normal Human…?
Yeah, mentioned that somewhere already
(It’s actually just the Shard of the Dark Crystal)
Nice Grinch smile in the last panel.
I’ll bet she’s pointing at one of the two leftmost middle row items.
the RIGHTMOST middle row item looks like a child’s handmade clay ?ashtray?, if she made it then it would explain her reaction.
Thought that that was a mould of her teeth from when she wore braces
Huh. That was a really good guess
Can She withstand the temptation… to push the button that, even now beckons her closer? Will she succumb to the maddening urge to eradicate history? At the MERE PUSH of a SINGLE BUTTON! The Beeyootiful shiny button! The jolly candy-like button! Will she hold out, folks? CAN she hold out?
<paraphrased for Sydney from Ren & Stimpy: Space Madness
I’m guessing it’s something from her embarrassing teenage years – perhaps her dental retainer or something.
A dental retainer at that distance would look like any other retainer. A child’s handmade green clay blobby thing would be uniquely recognisable from across the room.
However, a dental retainer for a superbeing like Maxima may be something special to handle superteeth. Poor teen Maxima may have needed a adamantium helmet or something to adjust her teeth.
Depends on when had to wear it (she wasn’t always the GEOD)
DEE DEEEEE! GET OUT OF MY LABORATORY!!
I love you for this. XD
You win 10 Internets.
And you just know that, somewhere in that lab…there’s a watermelon in a vise.
“What’s that?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
You see this just makes me think of the Mitchel and Webb schetch (I can’t spell sorry) where the president of american and a general go to the labs of a Doctor Doom to see the devices he’s been making with their funding including the doom melon. “Nooo I made the Doom Melon to help mankind not destroy it!”
Ten bucks says it’s a Maxima figurine
1) a figurine would have to be licensed, which generally requires approval of both the draft design & final prototype. She would have seen it before.
2) Dave SAID it was on the shelf on the last page.
Now send me my $10
A figurine does not have to mean a licensed, mass produced item. Nor does it mean that it requires any kind of approval from anyone. So Maxima could easily be seeing it for the first time. A figurine could easily be a unique item that Deus simply commissioned to be created for himself, as he may well have done with many or all of his replica swords.
Dr. Nefario: “Do you want to explode?”
I’ve only seen a few episodes of Better of Ted, yet I instantly recognized the lab guys. Well drawn
Place your bets. Which item on the shelf is she freaking out about?
Necklace. Top row, center.
I doubt she’s pointing at the Maltese Falcon, so it’s probably one of the things on the middle shelf.
Dave, you keep saying you need to wake-up to post the Patreon image. There should be a script available, or that can be made, that would upload the contents of a folder on YOUR computer to a set location on that site, at a set time. Then all you’d have to do is set it up, use the system task scheduler to activate it, and leave your computer running. You could probably get the script to turn of your computer when it was done.
Doubtful. Or, at least, non-trivial. I was trying to figure out how to do exactly that, but Patreon’s site is made of pointless and obfuscated Javascript. It’s hard to figure out how it does anything, so it’s hard to make it do anything it doesn’t explicitly do. And of course they don’t have an API.
Macro recorders aren’t that hard… Just set one up to upload from a specific folder and only have the file you want uploaded in that folder.
“Whatever you do, don’t hit the red button unless you absolutely have to.”
And then a long list of what ifs go until…
“When we are on the verge of dying….?!?!”
“Well even then….”
Sydney looks stricken, her hyped up mind spinning so fast she’s getting dizzy.
Then the puppy dog eyes come out or doe eyes—which ever then the scientist says…
“Okay, that is a high probably use for it. But nothing less, absolutely nothing less….”
“Sydney, why are you drooling like that….?”
Then Maxima comes along and takes the device out of Syd’s shaking hands as she strides by.
“You must never ever give anything like this to Sydney, capiche?” She looks down with fire in her eyes.
“Oh-oh kay, Maxima, whatever you say” And the white coated tech backed up and slunk away.
Sydney didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So she strangled a bit with conflicting emotions while she got the glare from Maxima who then strode off….
I have to say, I like the interaction between Deus and Max. I would not expect the two of them to be able to make a long-term romantic relationship work, mainly because neither would be willing to put their career on hold if the other had a critical emergency come up. Come to that, given their careers, neither one really should put their career on hold for the other’s emergency–Max is heading up a super-justice team that, quite frankly, is unlikely to function without her skills being made available on a regular basis, and Deus…well, when you’re that rich, you’ve got some pretty serious obligations that you really can’t back out of easily. There are literally tens of thousands of people whose jobs and livelihoods directly depend on Deus’s decisions, and on his ability to present the right image, and make the right call…and the same is true of Max. Generally, marriage at that level becomes as much about having someplace to go where you aren’t in charge of anything as it is about alliances, love, etc. This is why most celebrity marriages end in divorce, and why so many business owners get a reputation (deserved or not) of cheating with their secretaries. Given Max’s rapid promotion within the military (given the events of https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/989, she cannot have been anything other than–at most–a newly minted lieutenant), she is clearly being fast-tracked for general…and being the general’s spouse has a set of responsibilities that Deus would almost certainly have the time to meet.
All of that said, I really like Deus. He’s who Donald Trump wants to be–arrogant, ruthless, and often smug, to be sure, but he seems to have the…call it the credentials to back that arrogance up. He’s a self-made billionaire, he’s currently in the midst of accelerating an entire country from basically a tribal society into, at a minimum, a feudal society. And before you start thinking that is not a massively impressive accomplishment, I will point out that Egypt is a pre-feudal imperial culture, and it is so massively and economically superior to its African neighbors that it can basically do whatever the hell it wants. Deus’s country moving into a feudal society would have the resources, both material and intellectual, to basically conquer a significant chunk of the continent.
All of that said, I do have to wonder–how much of the economic activity in Galatyn is coming from Deus’s own businesses? Because if most of the economy is Deus, than the changes won’t be permanent, and the country will start to collapse almost immediately upon his absence, death, or even if he makes a simple miscalculation.
Basically, it works out like this: if you try to make a profit off of industrializing a country, you’re going to end up creating a top-down growth program, which can work, and can work quite well, but will leave the country in essentially the same position that China or Germany are in–rich, yes, but largely dependent upon foreign markets to sustain their own domestic economies. If Deus is just investing the money in education and infrastructure, and not focusing on making a profit off the investments, he will be in a position to create economic growth from the bottom up. In the long term, the second investment pattern will create a larger, more robust economy, and will likely net him more money and stronger position in terms of worldwide profitability…but both the cost and the risk would be enough to make even an egomaniac like Deus shudder. I’m not saying he wouldn’t do it, but he’d be…careful about HOW he did it.
Please. Look at Trump. Super rich (although probably far from a billionaire in actual assets, since he values his brand so very highly), but still has the leisure to run a campaign for President. From all the people I have heard discuss their Presidential campaigns, it is by far more than a full time job. Unless Trump is piking it he is not able to pay attention to his business obligations.
Less time consuming but still well within Trumps ability to schedule it in with all these “pretty serious obligations” that a wealthy businessman should have according to you, The Apprentice.
Trump lives a life of leisure, he is not putting 40+ hours per week into running his business. He got exhausted just standing at a podium for three hours in the first debate and had to demand that the next debates be shorter.
Which is one reason why I do not consider Trump a serious candidate for the presidency. Come to think of it, I don’t really think he’s a worthwhile human being. Even for a politician.
You do realise that he isn’t the only Trump, don’t you? His daughter is probably handling things already
That statement does nothing to contradict my refutation that just because a man is rich he must have huge demands on his time. In fact, it supports it. A rich man is more capable of hiring someone to manage their business than a poor man.
I’m assuming the first row second item, second row first item, or third row third item.
That would be the response to “where the hell did my vibrator go?”
But more seriously, the negotiations on the disposition of people being held as prisoner would not be a 5 minute thing. Really. Not 5 minutes. Not in any universe. That had any relevance. Seriously.
The disposition of the combatants who were being held captive could be an excellent ‘after the months long negotiations’ thing to let drop into conversations. But what, one or two days after the fight? Never happening in any setting that wants to be taken seriously.
I don’t see that so much as negotiation per se, as “can you tell us anything that will speed up this process?” Deus gets some influence on which of the prisoners they process first, and Archon gets information that hopefully will mean they finish processing the last ones more quickly. Seems like a reasonable exchange.
I mean, I don’t think Opal is going to be released just because Deus SAYS he can vouch for her. But it would imply that he can provide some evidence to back up his vouching. Which evidence he can order a subordinate to collect and deliver, all off-camera.
And Vekter, he’s asking for quick processing – not lax processing. He as much as says that they are likely to find some outstanding legal issues. Whatever jail time may stem from those issues, the sooner it starts the sooner it’s done. And he’s offering exile as an alternative to jail, apparently to keep Vekter’s girlfriend happy – Archon has some interest in keeping supers happy and peaceful.
Glad someone else mention the crystal dildo first, or maybe that’s what the horn is? o_O
Yup, what Don said: no where is there any mention of letting anyone go, besides, they are being held for processing (it even said so at the time)
A conversation which includes the sentence “I can insist he … reside in Galtn for the foreseeable future” is definitely one which is discussing letting at least one, and probably everyone go.
Remember that the promise was that they were not being arrested, just being taken for a debriefing. Now, cops lie all the time when it suits their purposes, and nothing was promised in writing, so things could change. But debriefing is certainly different from imprisoned or even held until trial.
Maybe the Unicorn horn is actually real? and Maxima is questioning how Deus is innocent enough to posses it?
or the center object might be some sort of hand-made crystal formation Maxima made for a high school art project, back when she was testing her powers.
You don’t have to be innocent to possess the horn of a dead beast, just to ride it while it is alive (and ‘innocence’ is relative, just ask Tiff in “Exiern”)
Deus’s smile in that last panel is hilariously smug! Also, Sydney talking about drinking that goop, in panel three, reminds me of what’s (currently) happening with Angela, from Atomic Laundromat.
When I first watched Better Off Ted, my first question was ‘At what point do they change their name to Aperture Science?’
When Phil and Lem finally weaponize lemons :D
SO AWESOME TO SEE PHIL AND LEM AGAIN!!!
Guessing something personal Maxima lost during a fight,
that was sold to him on Ebay, or through Harem.
or the charred remains of Vehemence’s Arm that Maxima blew off.
I don’t think there are any remains to that arm.
And I doubt Deus would keep something like that on a shelf
Could be the 2-handed khopesh she’s pointing at (from the wall of swords). Probably not, though. More likely, I think, the middle item from the middle row. At some Wild Mass Guessing, I’d say a leftover cinder from when Maxima’s power first emerged. Or a leftover shard of her power’s source.
Pretty sure it’s not. Wall of swords isn’t behind him. The real question is, which displayed item is she pointing at? I can only identify a couple on the shelf. Top and bottom right corners are the Maltese Falcon and The Dark Crystal I believe. The top left corner appears to be a unicorn horn, but I’m pretty sure I’m missing the specific reference to it. The rest of them I ether have no idea on or don’t have a well enough shot to be able to properly identify them.
Except those two, none of them are references.
Pretty sure at least one or two others are references. The pendant looks a bit particular to not be and I’m pretty sure the key is one too.
A Ren and Stimpy reference.
You’re officially my hero now.
well, there’s raymond and winston, where are the other 2?
Rude.
What worries me is how long it took for that one scientist to start to worry about Sydney being in his lab.
If you know anything about Phil and Lem, they are no worried, just wondering how they can adopt her
A few things.
1. Where did the table in front of Deus go in the last panel? From the previous page we know it is at least higher then his knees and from the first panel looks to be at least three or four feet wide.
2. Is Maxima’s chair in panels four and five rotated or is it still facing Deus (hard to tell with perspective). Also, going by the first panel (where we can see Maxima’s arm and hand) I think the chair should be more to our left (and off screen) in those panels (from our perspective they went from being to Deus’s left, to his right or directly in front of him. though where it is matches a little better with Monday’s comic.
3. I have no clue what is behind Deus. In the last page it was a solid brown wall with a painting, cabinets and the artifacts (going by panels three and four) but in the final panel it’s the wall that was to his right two pages ago with the artifacts directly to his left on another wall. Only thing I can think of is he quickly spun his chair out of Maxima’s way and rotated his position doing so, but there are no indicators that he moved at all and it appears (in all but the last frame) that he was still facing Maxima for the entire page.
That being said, I love the comic and keep up the good work.
More than likely, he swivelled his chair out of the way to give Maxi full view of his trophy of hers
Just have to remember: if it appeared that time passed between panels, then it did, doesn’t always have to have a time stamp or a notice of passage of time
Hooray for Phil & Lem!!
I really miss that show!
Will we also see Ted, Linda, and Veronica? Veronica for sure would work at Machina Industries, and I could see her being the reason for Phil and Lem being there, outside of a hostile takeover of Veridian Dynamics. Ted might also be there, to look out for Phil and Lem. I can’t imagine Linda being able to handle working for Deus though. There’s just not enough coffee creamer in the world for that.
Veridian Dynamics closed down, Phil and Lem remained and Deus simply bought the building they continued to live and mad scientist in
It’s a baby photo of Max, A baby photo of Max……
“Better Than Ted” was one of those few shows that showed the point of view of an evil corporation (one that had no illusions about being or doing evil), they would have fitted in well with the “Evil Inc.” webic
My head cannon prefers that he did a hostile takeover of Veridian because they were direct competition. So Ted’s still around as a mid level functionary. His boss however is long gone for being too much like Deus but not as smart.
Nah, Ronnie enjoyed being a mid-level boss too much to be a threat: she had minions to boss around with out having to worry too much about the ‘overhead’
THAT FUCKING FACE!
is it the broach / necklace on page 411?
That, or her old braces
Whatever it is, it has to be personal to get that reaction