Grrl Power #428 – F.U.tility
You know, except for all the stupid Swiss Army doodads, Sydney’s fantasy multi-axe might almost be a workable tool. (Ok, minus the laser sight as well) And since she can fly, why would she need an ice climbing axe? Because she’s been playing Tomb Raider, that’s why.
After Sydney gets over her initial enthusiasm, Anvil may need to point out that Arc-SWAT isn’t the investigatory branch of Archon, so stuff like a lock pick gun might not be the most practical gadget if she’s really tight on space.
Still, I’ve never understood why superheroes don’t all have utility belts of some sort. Sure, batarangs don’t do you any good if you can’t throw then with 90 plus percent accuracy, but everyone from Wonder Woman to Spider-Man would benefit from a fingerprinting kit and some zip-cuffs. The super soldier formula and process used on Captain America is functionally impossible to replicate for story reasons, but not his shield. Tell me Black Widow wouldn’t benefit from vibranium bracers at least, and think about how much more Spidey’s punches would hurt if he had some brass knuckles, vibranium or not.
(Actually, since when is his shield vibranium? They keep calling it vibranium in the movies, but I thought it was adamantium, or at least an adamantium/vibranium alloy. It probably is, they just don’t want to keep saying “adamantium/vibranium alloy.”) Edit: Ok, as about 20 people have commented, they apparently can’t use the word adamantium in the Cap and Avengers series cause Fox licenced out the X-men and all their particular baggage which includes the word adamantium and maybe even the word mutant, which seems like a really dick thing for Fox to do – I mean beyond the dumb Fantastic Four reboot.
I’ve updated the vote incentive with that picture of Peggy and Zayra. It’s pencils only at the moment because… well, because of Overwatch if I’m honest. Anyway, check it out, and I’ll hopefully have it further along in the next week or two.
So, A-kon is this weekend, and I will be around. I’d say I’ll be at most of the webcomic panels, but looking at the schedule, I hardly see any. I’m not sure what’s going on with that. Fan Expo Dallas is the same weekend, I don’t know if non-anime indie people are moving over there or what – though I did see that Joe Madureira will be giving a talk at Fan Expo. It’s probably not worth a one day ticket to see just one panel there, I mean, it’s not like hearing him talk will make me a better artist or anything, but for the first time I’m considering bouncing between the two cons. Actually their guest list is pretty amazing. We’ll see.
As for A-kon, if anyone is there and wants to meet up, there’s a restaurant in the hotel called the Media Grill and Bar. I’ll be there at 7pm on Friday wearing, uh… I don’t really have any Grrl Power shirts or anything. I’ll have one of those short brimmed green caps that Max wears. It doesn’t have an eagle on it, it’s just the kind you can get at Target. I have glasses and a goatee (technically a Van Dyke – something I learned from the City of Heroes character creator) Anyway there’s a tiny picture of me over at the Patreon.
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Sydney, there’s already a Swiss Army Knife….
She wants a Swiss Army Axe.
Or perhaps a shotgun axe…
Of course, the one the actual Swiss army uses doesn’t have half of that stuff on it.
You aught to check out the new Swiss army flame-thrower. It has a built-in mini-bar and satellite TV!
And it can flambe your meal in a pinch if you set it on low
I have never seen a bayonet on a shotgun before, even if the bayonet is a version of an axe instead of just a spike/knife.
Its one from Agents of Shield. A character called Mac wanted one at the end of Season 2 (I think) and taped an axe to a shotgun in Season 3
It would make sense actually, in a military environment. Probably don’t see them because of the Hague convention banning their use (with current buckshot). Should modified ammunition be developed by the US, such that it did not deform in a way that is prohibited under the convention, then you may well see military shotguns with bayonet attachments.
Given that buckshot-like ammunition is at its most effective at close range, it would be logical to have a bayonet fitted. Even more so than on the longer range weapons we are used to seeing them on.
Shotguns are still issued and used by the US military and have been ever since WWI. The Winchester M1917 was specifically designed to be used in the trenches and was fitted with bayonet lugs. They aren’t as useful in open field combat but they were popular with Marines on the islands in WWII and with troops in the Vietnam jungles where range isn’t as much a factor as doing as much violence as fast as possible.
Modern shotshells use steel balls rather than lead so they don’t deform and can penetrate things a bit better. They have also developed flechette shotshells. Instead of balls they fired a small cloud of tiny nails with fins attached to keep them flying in a straight line. They don’t disperse as much as shot and so can go much longer ranges and can also penetrate non rigid body armors or even steel helmets at close range.
Scary bit of trivia. These flechette shotshells were developed from giant versions fired by artillery in Vietnam for close range defense. Literally a 105mm shotgun firing 10,000 of these things at assaulting infantry. They were called “beehive” because of the buzzing sound they made flying through the air. I’ve seen pictures of men hit by them with rifles nailed to their bodies and helmets nailed to their heads. Reality is worse than fiction sometimes.
Actually the Winchester 1917 has a bayonet lug on it as it was intended to be used as a trench gun in WWI. It was still in use through Vietnam so I’m certain at some point someone attached one to it to stab someone.
WW1 “trench broom” shotgun with bayonet
https://picturearchive.gunauction.com/359899/5528301/ACFD143.jpg
Shotgun + axe = chopgun.
Of course…The shotgun “tenderizes” meat & the axe can dice it into nice little cubes for stewing.
The chopgun is also good against zombies. You stun the undead with a shotgun blast so you can decapitate it with the axe. Why don’t everyone own a chopgun already?
I suspect for a few reasons:
1: The axehead at the butt end would make it difficult to hold to shoot; but putting it at the end of the barrel would make it a pain to keep up–kiss your aim goodbye (an axe head is considerably heavier than a bayonet, especially if the axe is meant for serious combat function).
2: In addition, chopping someone with an axe tends to be… messy. Viscera and brains and such could easily end up causing the gun bits to jam until they could get cleaned.
Basically, you end up with a multi-weapon that does neither function very well.
The axehead could be hidden inside the stock and flip out using a simple spring mechanism when it’s choppingtime. I can’t find a sollution from the brain jam though. But a zombie story will usualy allow a rather high level of rule of cool wich is something I belive the chopgun can provide.
Fun fact: gun axes are real.
The axe head is mount at the end of the barrel. They come in flintlock and wheel lock varieties and sadly didn’t last as long a the pistol-key combo.
https://66.media.tumblr.com/4963ecf32169099660ed848c7baa1b19/tumblr_o0ter33BFJ1rwjpnyo1_400.jpg
Interesting. Many a true word spoken in jest.
He he he he.
They can’t say adamantium in Avengers movies, because it’s an X-Men thing, and Fox has the rights.
Also, why would Wonder Woman need zip-cuffs? She has a magic rope.
Sorry, not meant to be a reply.
She needs that rope. Zip cuffs she can leave behind on the crim.
I love to hate that shield.
One moment it dampens all vibration instantly (suspending my disbelief of the violation of conservation of energy, won’t comment)
The next, he’s using it to amplify sound waves…
I guess I like the characterisation but not the character?
Well officially it absorbs all shocks,similar to vibranium, while also being as strong as admantium
If it absorbs everything like that, how is it able to bounce around on the walls? Wouldn’t it absorb that energy too, and fall to the ground?
It must have an outer layer of plotonium (read carefully, it is not plutonium). Which allows it to behave in the manner most conducive to the plot.
I think the ‘official’ explanation is that Vibranium has a grain- along the grain disperses energy, while against the grain is bouncy, or vice-versa.
Anyone back me up on this?
Cannot confirm, but I have had a similar idea for a while, in case I ever became an editor on Captain America: the more directly you hit the shield (or shield hits you), the more energy is dispersed/reflected. The more indirect the hit (say along the edge, the more is absorbed).
But basically, as Spider-Man says, it runs on plot and Rule of Cool.
also, this is Cap’s shield we’re talking about. remember when the Beyonder fought most of the Marvel universe? this guy’d disintegrated and rebuilt Mjolnir without breaking a sweat.
he actually had a tiny of a trouble re-making Cap’s Shield. that should set off a few alarm bells ;)
In one of my campaigns I introduced an item by the name of “Unmaker”, which appeared to be incidental treasure amongst a major horde. It appeared to be a well made, but unexceptional dagger, with a sharp blade. It has the following properties:
• No form of divination, knowledge of secret lore, spell or other means can identify it as being anything more then an unremarkable dagger. Barring observation of its effects when used. Or the direct observation (not including any form of remote sensing) in person, by one of the great elder gods.
• Any means of tracking, or remotely locating it, will fail. But in such a way that does not allow tracking by indirect means either. Thus if an attempt is made to locate the Unmaker by scrying on the person carrying it, that ability would fail. Likewise if a deity could observe everywhere in the universe, and deduce that the one place it could not observe was the location of the dagger, then that ability would fail too. But in a subtle way, which would not confirm it was in a particular universe.
• Although it has no better chance to hit, than a regular dagger, no form of defence could impede its blow. Be it armour, shield, force field or divine act. An unskilled wielder could miss, of course, but if the blow strikes true, it will do damage.
• It inflicts no more damage than a regular dagger would, under the circumstances, barring the fact that no defence, of any sort, can reduce the damage inflicted.
• Nothing can heal, restore or undo the damage inflicted. Ever. Not even turning back time, a wish, nor the act of the most powerful deity.
• Anything slain by the dagger is removed from existence. Even the most powerful of gods. This cannot be undone by any means. History is not re-written though, so memories of them will remain. But even travelling back, in time, to a point when they previously existed will find that they have been erased there too. They will have no form of afterlife, nor will any means of recreating them, such as by cloning, achieve any results.
• Any time it has been sealed up somewhere, or abandoned in a remote or inaccessible place, has resulted in it not being in that location, the next time somebody looks for it. Other than this, and its other properties above, it has no observable intelligence, free will or agenda. Nor do even the elder gods know how, when or why it was created.
• The only means of destroying it is to unmake the multiverse itself. (There was a story arc, should the players have wanted to pursue this route!)
Any deity, old and powerful enough to recognise the weapon, is unlikely to react favourably to whoever is carrying it, unless it is a highly trusted and devout follower. And maybe not even then.
There was no agenda or plot for the introduction of the artefact to the campaign. On the grounds that nobody, not even the gods, was aware that it had fallen into the players’ hands. So whatever happened with it depended wholly on what the players did with it. And whether they happened to display it in the presence of a great elder god.
How can Fox have the rights when already people like Hesiod or Theophrastus of Eresos described materials with names like “Grey Adamant” or similar?
The same way that they were able to use “Thor” and “Loki”. It applies when using works which clearly associate with the stylised fictional setting, rather than the real world. I would be fully entitled to create a story with Thor and Loki, utilising Grey Adamant, so long as I did not also draw in distinctive Marvel-universe elements, which might make readers think it was an officially sanctioned Marvel work.
And even thought you’d be perfectly within your rights to make such a work, you can count on being forced to spend an extraordinary amount of money and resources defending that right.
Only if there was enough similarity to the Marvel works that their lawyers felt it was worth pursing The bad publicity, should they litigate carelessly, does make even big corporations think twice. Once that fact is pointed out by somebody who knows their rights and does not intend to cede them quietly.
Fortunately those of us who cannot afford to hire representation are allowed to represent ourselves. And I would have nothing to loose. Whereas they would have nothing to gain. Plus the courts tend to be sympathetic to those who have no option but to defend themselves Not to mention the media loving an underdog, who has a just cause.
Not really. Just take a look at the litigation underway for the latest Star Trek fan film. Despite not bothering at all the past fan works this one is being litigated. And so far as I can tell, there’s no real backlash. It’s not like a rabid Star Trek fan is going to say “You denied me the ability to watch another fan film, so I’ll deny you my $20 at the cinema by skipping the next actual Star Trek Film!” Yeah, not happening.
Not even a similar example, I am afraid. My hypothetical story is drawn from real world mythology and historic literature which predates the company’s copyright claim by centuries. They do not have a legal leg to stand on.
Your example is a group of individuals who have chosen to make a work directly based on characters and a setting which is covered by copyright. Hence the legal issues that they bump into. Although I wish them well, theirs is the harder path to walk.
A better example would be Warhammer’s copyrighting of the term “Space Marine”. What the greedy corporate pigs failed to understand is that their copyright applied only to the name in conjunction with the distinctive likenesses (be it visually or in written form). This is because “Space Marine” has been used in literature since at least 1930.
Warhammer were drawing their inspiration from an existing body of literature. Hence the term could ONLY apply to their unique interpretation of it. Their copyright is much weaker than a term with a unique name.
None the less it would also cover fan-fiction of their particular setting, because that is what is copyright. It would then be down to their corporate policies on how to treat fan fiction, combined with whatever allowances for fair use exist in copyright law. For instance parody and review (with limited excerpts) are exempt from protection.
However, an author wrote a work unconnected to Warhammer’s setting, but using the common term “Space Marine”. Foolishly they attempted to assert a copyright claim. All it earnt them was bad publicity and showing their claim to be unenforceable.
This is a directly analogous example as it was a lone author, heroically standing up to a bullying corporation. Fortunately she did not have to do it alone. The writing world rallied behind her.
As we must alll do so, in such circumstances. And we must never let false threats of such actions stifle our creativity! Not even by self-censorship. We have the right to draw on inspiration from history. Copyright laws were not created to stop that, and must not be allowed to be abused, in such a fashion!
That’s one example. I wonder how much that gal had to pay, either out of pocket or via donations, and also in terms of time invested and heartache, to heroically stand up to that bullying corporation? The company was most likely just using a resource they already had on payroll, and it probably cost the executives of that company nothing in terms of out of pocket expenses, time, or heartache, to pursue the suit.
Here’s another example of what a company with large resources can do to a small company: Try to make them change their name, for what appears to be completely frivolous reasons.
Old Ox is not Red Bull. Neither word is even the same. The only confusion of trademenks here is in the eyes of Red Bull and their lawyers.
There’s an associated link in the article describing how Red Bull also went after Redwell brewery. Here they have the word “Red’ in common. But there should be no copyright on a color or a common word! This is why many companies use stylized words instead of actual words in the dictionary. Or portmanteau words together in some fashion. Because typically common words and names are not easy to protect under copyright claims. There’s a case where the Howard Johnson’s chain of hotels sued a single hotel owner whose property was named Howard Johnson. A clear cut case of his having tried to blur the distinction between his hotel and the large chain, right? They deserved to protect their trademark name, right? No, this guy was named Howard Johnson and his hotel was open before the first hotel in the large chain was ever opened. The chain lost the suit, but I wonder how much time, money, and heartache this small businessman had to invest in order to win the suit? Even if the chain had to pay his costs I am certain it did not cover all the real costs of fighting against a company with deep pockets and no scruples.
The worthwhile things in life are rarely easy to achieve. But we should stand up for what we know to be right.
I do not feel that the legal system is fair today, where the person with the deepest pockets can bully others. The UK did used to have decent legal aid, for the poor. But that has been cut back to virtually nothing now. So a great many people have to back down from defending against a bullying legal attack, even when they have a good case.
But, circumstances permitting. we must make a stand against bullies, whatever form they take.
‘Grey Adamant’ is not ‘Adamantium’
Hmm, I think Cap’s shield has been made of different things in the different Marvel universes for decades now. Pretty sure the 616 version was adamantium/steel/vibranium, but it was also repaired by the same smiths who created Mjolnir, not to mention being wished back into shape, so who knows what it’s really made of now. Seems like the 199999/MCU version might be pure vibranium, since it can be scratched by other vibranium.
They didn’t make another shield in the MCU as they were low on Vibranium. The only one who had a stockpile was a black market seller.
Yep. Poor Ultron completely misunderstood. Sure, most versatile substance in the world, and they made a frisbee, but they couldn’t even make more frisbees, much less do any other tests with it…
well really they didn’t make the shield, they had some vibranium and steel in a bowl, and over night it combined in to a frisbee.
and them trying to make it happen again is what gave them admantium.
Twisted Haywire is right, more or less. The only part I can’t confirm is how it wound up disc-shaped.
That’s what happened in 616, anyway. In the MCU it’s unclear why their only supply of vibranium was in the shape of a shield and they were willing to let a soldier use it instead of scientists.
Wait, why would a scientist want to use a shield for? o_O
The story as I read it was that the scientist who made it was working long hours and using all kinds of different substances. He fell asleep, knocked some of his supplies into the mix-master while asleep, and afterwords they could never figure out how to replicate this serendipitous event.
Because the same sort of scientist who will fall asleep on the job will also forget to keep a decent inventory of his supplies and won’t be able to figure out what got knocked in to the mix-master by the weight of what is left behind. Naturally.
So the shield is a mix of vibranium, adamantium, and any one of a good hundred other things this guy had laying around his lab. Hell, he probably spilled his diet Pepsi into the mix, a handful of cold French fries, and a few bites of a sub from the local deli. And who knows what the hell that deli was using for their secret sauce!
It. Never. Had. ADAMANTIUM!!!
Adamantium was created decades later in an attempt to recreate the process (and none of this ‘proto-adamantium’ bullshit either)
Sources seem to differ with you. From Wikipedia:
The comics are famous for a lack of consistency and continuity, but it seems that for at least “a long time” the reality is that the shield is a compound of proto-adamantium and vibranium, and I guess a few unknowns. You can vent your purist fanboy rage all you like if you prefer some other shield composition, but thems are the facts.
I’ve got the comics that show the shield being made, I wonder if they have any substantial value.
Well… not the -only- one. Wakanda is described as the world’s almost exclusive source of vibranium (Klaw and Cap were the ‘almost’). In fact, I think it likely that after giving up his shield at the end of Civil War, Cap being in Wakanda indicates that Panther will probably furnish him with a replacement, as they’re on good terms.
actually vibranium isn’t that strong, you’re thinking of admantium, which is a vibranium-steel-something alloy which becomes indestructible once it cools
No vibranium is strong. People have used it as just is. Only counter was artic vibranium.
Cap’s shield is constructed of an unknown iron alloy bonded to Vibranium, there is absolutely no Adamantium in it. Adamantium is a (relatively) inferior steel alloy developed in an attempt to recreate the original alloy making up Cap’s shield and when it was first introduced Ultron quickly upgraded itself to Ultron-5 using it and kept reusing it for nearly all its bodies after that point.
Vibranium meanwhile (the Wakandan version) is far inferior in durability (except in the movieverse) but its ability to absorb vibrations and kinetic energy help it handle a fair amount of punishment, at least until it hits is absorption maximum and explodes.
True, except it doesn’t explode.
In one universe someone nuked it and it still managed to absorb all the sound.
> unknown iron alloy
Maybe it’s Uru….
In the comics Caps Shield is Proto-Adamantium an alloy of Steel, Vibranium and a few other impurities, they know what went in to it (from the lab inventory), but due to sleep deprivation improper and partially illegible notes where kept and some where distorted in the accident not the ratios and meathod.
Adamantium was created from the experiments to recreate Caps Shield.
MCU Caps Shield is just Vibranium
The main reason is that Adamantium is owned by fox with Wolverine and Mutants. I’m pretty sure that an Adamantium Vibranium alloy has at least been one of his shields.
Pretty sure the original round shield in the comics was a vibrainum/admantum alloy that the formula to make was lost with the destruction of the lab where he was created. It was experimental to begin with. In the MCU it is pure vibranium. hopefully t’chala will create a new one for cap, since the other one has been returned to Stark.
The original shield wasn’t round though
Original round shield as in the first round one, not the first one period.
OK, I haven’t read anything from Marvel since the beginning of Civil War, and what I’m about to say came out of metallurgy research for an MCU campaign from earlier than that (also don’t have the notes anymore, so this is from memory)!
Virbanium comes in 2 isotopes: Wakandan and Savage Land. Wakandan absorbs vibratory (not kinetic) energy; Savage Land amplifies vibratory energy.
The version of Adamantium currently in use is an alloy of two other compounds (actual in comic text says resin A and resin B, but metals aren’t made of resins so this is the writer being ignorant). The version in Cap’s shield is NOT this form of Adamantium. THAT form was accidentally created (I think in the process of trying to refine Wakandan Vibranium and getting it wrong). Cap’s shield was originally this so-far-unreproducable form of Adamantium and the incorrectly refined Wakandan Vibranium. As I recall, it was supposed to store vibration when hit on the flat and release stored energy when hit on the edge. This in explanation of why it doesn’t QUITE stop all incoming damage, but ricochets like crazy and can be used as a weapon edge-on.
To repeat what I stated earlier, this info was from research remembered from well over a decade ago, AND may be filtered through in-campaign data (it was a “what do you do if every superhero disappears and the villains don’t” game; I was the Tony Stark wannabe and in charge of making all the gear everybody needed — hence all the research).
Wow, do you still have your birth certificate, or any photos, of you, from then? You really should let the Guinness Book of Records know.
Did you pick a side? Union or Confederate? Or maybe Roundheads or Cavaliers?
Since we can’t upvote posts, I have to answer: really, really good! Made me laugh a lot! ;-D
And, Wanderer, thanks for the summary, I think the “edge property” can be easily translated in the movies, particularly because, if vibranium absorbs vibrations/kinetic energy, it must release it somehow. It still does not explain how Cap and Thor can use the shield and Mjolnir to send a shockwave around, though (the scene was cool, but not consistent with the shield’s concept).
Oh, and on another note, for DaveB, Movie-Spiderman was until now owned by Sony, not Fox (and has now came partially back to Marvel Studios).
Hey – he stopped reading only slightly before I did. The end of “Civil War” pissed off a LOT of fans. And that stupid “Deconstructed” story-line afterwards was even worse. -_- In fact I’m mad enough to seriously consider boycotting all future Marvel movies simply because they used the “Civil War” cannon.
Well… maybe not. Guardians of the Galaxy was awesome. Still deciding if that was sufficient awesome to make up for the Civil War comics. (No, I’ve not seen the movie yet – that would fall under the boycott)
Go see the movie. The Civil War comic was a poorly executed good idea. The Civil War movie is the same framework of that good idea – superheroes fighting over differing ideologies – but executed much, MUCH better, so that the end result doesn’t resemble a mass of tangled octopus giblets. Because, unlike the comic, the issue they’re fighting about is not stupid, like secret identities and masks.
This. The Sokovian Accords are a brilliant notion, especially in comparison to the Powers Registration Act, or whatever the hell that was. It’s a much better plot-point (especially the thickness of the document. The moment Tony laid it down in front of Cap, I knew there were gonna be bits of dubious nature in the depths. The payoff, of course, was submersible Gitmo. So you end up with a reasonable base concept (“Let’s make the Avengers accountable!”) that has some unpleasant and unacceptable tagalongs (“Let’s make the accounting body unaccountable!”).
“submersible Gitmo” is the “Raft”. in the civil war comics, they even oneupped that.
“42” is a gigantic prison in the Negative Zone. seriously. because apparently it’s gotten to the point where they’d be putting away people who can’t even be in the same universe.
“(actual in comic text says resin A and resin B, but metals aren’t made of resins so this is the writer being ignorant). ”
Some resinous materials can harden to remarkable durability and can mimic other properties of metals, so while inaccurate at one level, it’s not utterly implausible.
Additionally, if the base materials are metals held in a liquid/semi-liquid state that crystallize in the combined state in a manner that is not duplicable in the differentiated state, that’s pretty much the definition of resin. The term “resins” is usually reserved for organic compounds, such as plastics and tree saps. However, we have another term for mixed metals, and that’s alloy.
However, I like your shared researched materials – accurate and concise.
In the comics, it was a weird accidental Adamantium/Vibranium alloy. Basically, the guy fell asleep and knocked some stuff over during the experiment and accidentally made it. He was unable to ever recreate the process. Trying to recreate it did actually lead to development of other uses for Adamantium.
In the movies, Fox has the rights to all things Adamantium, so they use Vibranium. The shield used the U.S.’s entire supply. Wakanda is the source of nearly all the world’s Vibranium, and they don’t share. The stuff in Ultron was stated to have been stolen from them.
No, in the comics the shield was never a mix of adamantium and vibranium, adamantium was created decades later trying to recreate the original shield’s material. The original accident that created the shield was due to military efforts to create a more durable metal for tanks and other military vehicles, if adamantium had existed prior to that point they’d have never needed to experiment to create something tougher because they already would have had something so tough nothing that existed at the time could have damaged it.
That adamantium/vibranium mess was because one person screwed up when researching things to do an entry on Cap’s shield that got reproduced all over the place as people kept referring to the original defective entry and even though it’s been repeatedly corrected since that time people continue to keep repeating the mistake.
If you want to knock up a rudimentary Atari Joystick controller, all you need are a few paper clips to short the pins out. And a note of the pinouts. Sure, it won’t get you the high score, but will aim a big lump of metal.
So many things can be fixed with paper clips, pen lids and duct tape.
THe paperclip thing is likely to work better than an actual Atari joystick, in which at least one of the four directional contacts is nearly always worn out/non functional.
Yeah, ours kept snapping on one side
I never had that problem, not with official Atari joysticks. I had one that lasted five years, and the only reason it stopped working was that the connector had gotten too loose from constantly plugging/unplugging it. A third-party knockoff joystick didn’t even last five weeks.
That was, however, a well-known complaint about the Atari joysticks. It was big enough that it was possible to put too much leverage on it and snap it. Since I only ever held the stick between my thumb and index finger (I didn’t “fist it” like some players did), I never had that happen.
Coincidentally, there are still companies (one of them is named Retro-Bit) that make knockoffs of the Atari sticks. There’s even a USB one, for people who play Atari 2600 games via the Stella emulator and like the original feel. Alternately, you can build your own, like this guy did:
https://www.instructables.com/id/Make-Your-Own-Atari-Joystick/
You could fix some by cutting the four pronged shape from an old tin can and drilling a few screw holes.
A endless pack of strong tape sounds usefull and potentialy fun.
if sydney’s a geek, she’ll have a MasterSystem or Sega Genesis around – those pads can easily be made to work with ATARI stuff :) (the connector is exactly the same, only a slight rewiring needed in some cases ;))
Leon is the technical one. Sydney is young enough that she may not have been exposed to those devices. She would have been about four when Mastersystem production ended in North America, for instance. What she mentioned above might represent the limit of her knowledge on archaic controllers.
sgt_flyer is absolutely correct. You can, in fact, use Sega Master System or MegaDrive/Genesis controllers on the Atari 2600… and I think you can use them without any rewiring at all (I could be wrong). Just remember that only the “B” button works.
Is Sydney holding some kind of gynaecological medical device, in the final frame?
Or something to shoe-horn all the rest of her equipment into the belt pockets?
It’s the pry bar from the first panel, just at a different angle
It’s somewhat amusing that she’s using that bar to gesture threateningly at Anvil. Seriously, how many of her colleagues are actually susceptible to being beaten over the head with an iron bar?
Hmm, let’s see.
Max; Too tough. More laps on the track, recruit!
Anvil: Gets a charge out of it.
Achilles: Yeah right.
Hiro: “You need to be more careful about moving that thing around. You might hurt somebody, well somebody else anyway.”
Stalwart: “Hey, watch where you swing that thing. This suit is expensive.”
Mr. Amorphous: It bounces off his head and right back to smacking Sydney in the face. When she regains consciousness, in the medical centre …
Dabbler: “Are you still trying to hit me? I thought we got that out of your system. Here, have a seat.”
Jiggawatt: Sydney finds out just how good steel is as an electrical conductor when Jiggawatt loses control and consciousness.
Math: “Oh, boobies! Ow! What did you do that for?” Could be considered justified.
Harem: “Ow! Will you careful, you klutz?! You just knocked me out. Now get me over to medical so the doctor can treat my concussion.”
Heatwave: She can not melt the bar fast enough to save herself from getting hit, but you do not want her angry. Flame thrower vs. Shield!
Black HulkReflex: Notices Sydney spin around without checking that she might hit something behind her. He grabs the bar as it is coming towards him and pushes it out of the way of smacking him. Sydney looses what little balance she has and ends up tumbling to the floor.Many of the others (Peggy, Arianna, Gwen, Brigadier Faulk (“Young lady, are you trying to get kicked off this team, or just want to spend the next 2 weeks cleaning the wash rooms using a toothbrush?”), Leon, Zephon, Varia, Vance, etc.) will have to dodge the thing, grab it or get a headache.
Remind me to never let any woman go to your local gynecologist.
First check – how many of the utility belt items can her orbs substitute for? Flight and Lighthook render the grappler superfluous, does the PPO come with a low-power laser cutting beam mode (or non-lethal rounds?
Knockout-gas grenades would be a good choice, esp. now she has a portable air supply.
She didn’t figure out how to use PPO in a non-exploding-super-laser-mode yet
Which still makes it a perfectly functional lockpick… as long as you’re not fussy about whether anything nearby is left in one piece…
“Wallpick”
That’s not fair, she’s using wallhack!
(Wheatley Voice): I’m going to have to attempt a manual override on this wall…could get a bit technical…
PPO might be a “building-pick” Better to use Lighthook and rip the door down.
I don’t think they’ll use Sydney where “stealth” is a requirement…
I do not think that was ever seriously considered by the leadership of this team.
Halo: (Thought bubbles) Okay, here I am being stealthy, sneaking from place to place to avoid being seen. [ CLANG! ] (Out loud) What the …? Damn it! Oh yeah, stealthy.
Peggy: Way to go Sydney. Good job kicking the paint can; no one would have noticed that. By the way, I could see you the whole time; quit running back and forth across the alley and find better cover!
To be fair, I think Peggy is the only one in the group capable of doing “sneaky”. Some of them could keep a low profile if they tried… but psychologically, I can’t see it happening. Harem probably comes closest, but she’s still unable to help drawing attention to herself.
The supers with sneaky powers end up in Arc Dark and Arc Light (see X as an example*), which is why there is such a noticeable lack in Arc SWAT. There simply are not enough supers to go around.
* Or don’t, most of the time.
Both Harem and Dabbler can be sneaky, but not really stealthy.
True. Most of the really sneaky individuals (like X) are in Arc-Light and Arc-Dark.
But Dabbler has a very broad range of capabilities, which we have barely scratched the surface of. Including magic, super technology and racial abilities.* Yet I can think of a couple, which we do know of, that are very useful if “sneaky” is called for.
Dabbler is the ultimate Mata Hari. A spy who uses seduction to operate. Dabbler does not need to hide in shadows. She saunters over, flirts, bumps her desirability up to 20, and her minions do whatever she wants! Straight, gay, robot, whatever (ok maybe not the robot), they will co-operate.
Then she has her other ability. She can hit them on the head with her forget spell. She has come, taken the most secret of secrets. And nobody even knows she was there.
Now that is sneaky!
* All offspring of Succubi are Succubi. But Dabbler may also have some capabilities from the other aspects of her heritage. Even if it is just skills, contacts or cultural benefits.
Sorry, missed saying “I agree though that is sneaky not stealthy”.
However the results are much the same.
Anything …. or anyONE.
I recently watched a movie about the shield and it sounded like Adamantium is the result of experiments to replicate the alloy of Cap’s shield (because the guy working on that fell asleep and something went horibly right, but they can’t recreate it properly). Which basically makes Cap’s shield is made from a Vibranium alloy that could be called Proto-Adamantium, while Adamantium is a very similar alloy, but not quite the same.
This.
I think regular admantium is officially called beta-admantium for this reason.
Proto-Adamantium is the metal in Cap’s Shield. True Adamantium that was made when they tried to re-create Proto-Adamantium. Once cooled, True Adamantium can never be re-worked. Wolvie’s skeleton had True Adamantium bonded to it, but his healing factor changed it on a molecular level, and as a result it can heal itself. Secondary Adamantium is a cheap version of True Adamantium, and Carbonadium (Omega Red’s coils) is a more flexible version.
oh, true admantium, can’t remember so many names
Is that how he got the metal claws back in Days of Future Past?
It would need something intelligent in the process or instead of having a set of steak knifes, he would have round spikes to match his old bone claws.
Actually, Caps shield IS impossible to replicate. Or at least, some versions of his shield in some universes, where its some crazy adamantium/vibranium/something else alloy that can never be replicated the same. But yes, Black widow could probably use some energy shield gadget or something.
Though, considering how Iron Man gave Spiderman all those cool extras for the Iron Spider outfit…I guess the only reason he doesn’t do that for more people is because they turn it down, for…reasons.
Maybe stark being really obsessive about his tech, and fail-safes and remote controls and trackers and such was an issue? I forget.
How hard could that realistically be? They know what materials were in the lab at the time, and they can probably see which ones are unopened, so it’s not like there’s a big list
Well the guy was mixing random metals with vibranium for days, the succesfull one was just one of the ones he fell asleep while melting, so he has no idea what exactly was in there.
They tried to guess what it was and only were able to make a slightly worse one, called it admantium
So just a very poor excuse for a scientists that didn’t write down what he did.
Convenient
You just described 90% of all major discoveries (and scientists, Phil & Lem will be most sad)
Well he was gonna write it down when he made one that worked, he just feel asleep from exhausting himself by not sleeping for days
That’s the thing. In real science you write down everything you do, when you do it. Exactly so falling asleep halfway through doesn’t ruin your discovery
Just think about the dates here. Captain America was operational in World War II. So of course real scientists will have tightened up their procedures since then. Once bitten twice shy. They don’t want the profession to make the same mistake twice, after all.
Science is not a new invention though.
When trying to make something new, documentation is the first thing you do.
I understand it’s few story purposes, but still silly
But they were already “once bitten” by then: the loss of the ‘super-soldier formula’ when “Dr Reinstein” was murdered, remember?
Hr’rmm, didn’t Cap also have an all-vibranium shield at one point, supplied by the Black Panther during Steve’s “The Captain” stage after he’d had to surrender the original shield — and the actual ‘Captain America’ identity — because those were US government property and he refused to just obey government orders?
You mean USAgent? I think his shield was pure Adamantium.
No, in real science you write down everything you *are about to* do.
And, depending on what materials you are working with and/or what sort of result you expect, you might also make a remote backup copy before you actually do it.
Fair point. You also write down what you’re planning before even starting
Real science has had a number of discoveries that have happened due to people not writing everything down, we’ve just formalized things in recent decades but quite a bit of it in the past was trial and error and without much if any note-taking.
True, Vulcanization of rubber was discovered by accidentally knowing a hunk of sulfur into rubber tree sap IIRC.
Layered glass (the glass in your car, with plastic in between it, that is impossible to break) was discovered when someone dropped a glass bottle after an experiment. The layer of residue inside kept it all together
This presumes a lot of things – a rigidly controlled environment / laboratory space is only one of them. Accurate understanding of the processes involved is another thing being assumed.
It’s entirely possible that some other factor that wasn’t measurable at the time of the creation of the shield played a part (say, for example an exotic cosmic ray storm that interacted with the material but to a far lesser degree than anything else).
In addition, there is magic in the Marvel Universe – and it’s been pretty well established in Doctor Strange that learning the somatic, material, and verbal components is insufficient to cast a spell. Attitude and understanding influences the outcome of spells as well (for more information, see Terry Pratchett and Headology). The Shield may be a result of a whole bunch of things coming together in a once-in-a-epoch event (a magic flash in the middle of a solar flare with a magnetic pulse in the magnetosphere that focused the cosmic background radiation into the materials that had somehow been infected with a mutant strain of the flu that the doc was obviously suffering from resulted in the shield).
That said, the lack of clear explanation or plethora of contradictory explanations that don’t account for established facts is pretty typical for a lot of Comic Book worlds. Writers in the comics rarely do sufficient research to not run roughshod over established continuity because “Hey, I’ve got this cool story idea”.
If comic writers had to run everything through research and crap, nothing would ever get written, certainly nothing pertaining to Supers and slash or Mutants, or the majority of the crap Batsie pulls out of his arse
Belt. I’m certain you meant to say ‘belt.’ The thought of the batarang alone….*shudder*
always wondered where he kept that shark repellent
Well it’s a comic book. So yea, I suppose cosmic storms that effect weirdly specific things in weirdly specific ways are just another day
Well the guy was mixing random metals with vibranium for days, the succesfull one was just one of the ones he fell asleep while melting, so he has no idea what exactly was in there.
They tried to guess what it was and only were able to make a slightly worse one, called it admantium
I love the new vote incentive! I honestly wonder if some of the character designers over at Blizzard read this comic…
Mentioned last page how much Peggy is probably drooling, and not just with her mouth :wink:
T.M.I.
Fun Fact: Zayra was actually based on Tamara Bakhlycheva, a programmer on Blizzard’s Diablo III team
The captain’s shield is made of proto-adamantium.
Adamantium is an alloy of vibranium and stuff, but proto-admantium is special because it’s a much better material than admantium (absorby all impact and stuff, even stronger, etc.), but the guy who was cooking it fell asleep while mixing it, and can’t remember what he made it out of.
Actuall admantium is an aptempt to replicate proto-admantium, they made an inferior version but declared it good enough.
I suspect that the nearest thing to Sydney’s fantasy is one of the various sorts of “rescue axe” made for fire and rescue services. Google the term; this one looks quite handy. One feature I believe that firefighters like that Sydney would miss is non-sparking blade material.
And I assumed that the Captain America/Avengers movies made Cap’s shield out of vibranium was that the rival company doing the X-Men movies had already nabbed adamantium for Wolvie’s skeleton – whereas vibranium could be tied into Black Panther’s backstory as and when.
Halo *really* needs to find out what unknown A and unknown B do.
I’d hate for them to remain a mystery until the point where they’re used in a deux ex makina situation.
“If only I had known this three days ago!”
¿μβ£¥!!!!
“WTF????”
RE the Shield, the MCU can’t use “adamantium” because that trademark is currently locked down to the people holding the X-Men rights — which isn’t currently marvel. That’s why Ultron wasn’t made of Adamantium either, because in the original he was adamantium.
I wonder if Adam Ant-ium would be available usage, or did Marvel end up having to pay retroactive royalties to use Adam Ant’s name as part of their ‘special metal’? Why not just use a portmanteu like, say, MacGuffinium, or McGuyveronium? how about ObviousMarySuenium?
*giggles*
Well to be fair Ultron doesn’t have to be made of Adamantium, his earlier incarnations (prior to Ultron-5) were just regular steel shells, so in the movieverse it just never had the opportunity to upgrade to a more indestructible shell before being destroyed. The Adamantium is fairly iconic now but it’s not essential to the character (it didn’t start with it in The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes for example but was still terrifyingly powerful even making Thor and the Hulk have to work hard at things).
I know it was not Marvel, but in “The Core” they had “Unobtainium”…
Such an unrealistic movie. They did not bump into one dinosaur down there! Let alone omitting the underground ocean. Hollywood does not even do simple fact checking. All they had to do was watch the one documentary, to get the basic facts.
I thought Unobtainium was from Avatar?
“No, that was Faykonium.”
Wasn’t Faykonium the MacGuffin in “Pigs in Space”?
“No, that was Ubiquitisteel.”
Argh!
I’m wondering if this combined with hammer space is a hint for one of Sydneys orbs
I’m also wondering if they will adress what got upgraded on her skill tree any time soon
Nice to see Math’s tips paying off
Sydney can learn! Wonder who lost that bet, and if it was contingent on time (ie before or after she actually picked anything)
She’s actually surprisingly practical at times. Remember her talk with Maxima about collateral damage, and how to avoid it? She was pretty quick to appreciate that comics don’t always reflect the concerns of reality…
Aww, how cute! I just realised that “Three Moves Ahead” has angel wing bangs. I would have expected “Min Max” to have demonic bat wing bangs.
But they are sooo cute. Gimme gimme!
Yeah, and note how MinMax has dark glasses? Wonder if they are modelled after a certain GEoD :D
Actually, they both have the Angel-wing Bangs
If Min-Max was going to have bat wings they would resemble Batman’s instead.
Except, Min-Max is actually “Mini Maxima” (note the dark glasses)
Ahh, I had not made that association. And its dialogue would make sense, coming from an avatar of Maxima’s. Plus it would explain why Min Max doesn’t have bat wing bangs. That would be representative of Dabbler.*
Extending that logic, then her angels/demons represent the influence of her two mentors, Maxima and Math, as opposed to being just her own inner voices. Flavoured in her own nerdy way, of course.
* It took 3 minutes for my traitor of a brain to supply the name!
“And a modicum of snuff” handy for getting out of a whale with Baron Von Munchousen? Love this comic
Ahh, thanks for placing that. Was funny in its own right. But felt that there was more to it I was forgetting.
I hope that Sydney remembers the rope re-use technique, if she is ever in a situation where she can’t use the fly-ball.
:D
Actually the grapple can be useful to a flyer. Chasing someone and need to reel them in but for some reason can’t get to them by flight alone. Providing a way for non-flyers to stay with the group. Wear a harness and extend a line for them before she flies. So a grapple thought out can be useful.
But I loved seeing her see through the test. Very good Sydney.
Don’t forget the hand-brake turn.
Not useful for Sydney though. She already has her Lighthook for just that purpose.
And both Lighthook and grapple need a free hand anyway
Grapple could attach to the harness I mentioned.
Harness or not, you still need hands to operate it.
Captain America’s shield cannot be replicated. It’s a Vibrainum steel alloy Created by a Metallurgist that (typically) fell asleep while the alloying process was taking place so that the Catalyst that allowed the shields creation is unknown. Without this Catalyst Vibrainum and steel/iron cannot alloy.
Yet for decades thanks to ONE bad entry in a handbook early on people have insisted the shield is a mix of Adamantium and Vibranium even when repeatedly told that Adamantium was created decades later from a failed attempt to recreate the material of Cap’s shield so can’t possibly be part of the shield’s composition. The only place where Cap’s shield is a blend of Adamantium and Vibranium is in the Ultimate Avengers movies.
It’s like saying it’s made of a copper-bronze alloy
I’m impressed that Sydney sniffed out this trap before she strapped all the gear to herself.
Captain America’s shield was pretty much created accidentally…they haven’t gotten the alloy to work right since.
Also, Spider-Man does have a few more pieces of gear on his costume than just his webshooters.
He has those little tracking bugs, doesn’t he? I seem to remember him tossing them onto a target, where they would stick. So that he could follow the signal, without being spotted.
Probably quite handy if he wants a snack too.
He also has a belt light that projects a red spider emblem (his signature symbol) that he sometimes uses both to see as well as to terrorize low level mooks.
I have often found a modicum of snuff to be most efficacious.
One of the items I used to like equipping my D&D characters with was a 1/2 lb of pepper.
• sprinkled on a trail will severely hamper tracking by scent
• thrown in the face can blind an opponent
• thrown in the air can create a cloud, for a similar effect
• substitutes for currency in areas where bartering is more useful than coins
• stops trail rations being too bland.
Re: Pepper
#1 Not really. A police dog handler told me that the pepper will cause the dog to sneeze, clearing out dust, and enabling him to more easily track the scent with a clean nose.
Shh, don’t tell my DM that!
I remember one method used to block sniffer dogs was a mix of dried blood and cocaine sprinkled over the trail
wow… that’s… that’s mad-scientists-level-evil right there
I love it!
I’ve been told that sort of thing before. Only thing stopping me is the requirement of a cat.
It’s tradition to use fish. Specifically Red Herrings.
mixture of skunk musk and gasoline will render a dog’s nose useless for days.
But where do you get the dried blood from?
Your characters must be AMAZINGLY rich. If you can find a 1/2 pound of pepper in anyplace that isn’t a port city, the cost would be absurd (in port cities which trade with the tropics the price of a 1/2 pound of pepper would only be agonizing)!
We use ammonia; cheaply available from even apprentice alchemists. And nothing (although the blood and cocaine trick might work; hadn’t heard of that one) really stops a good tracking dog, they just cast about till they get a clear scent and resume.
You would be amazed by the riches one pc can attain and don’t know where to spend it.
True in the real medieval world. Not so much in a D&D setting. Spices and the like were fairly cheap and it was often affordable early in the career. Which is when it was needed, as higher level characters have magical items that would do a much better job.
Mind you, in a world with teleportation, and other means of magical travel, the cost of getting spices from one part of the world to another would be more on a par with modern costs than medieval ones.
But, of course, the higher the cost of pepper, the greater its value for bartering. So it retained its use even such settings.
Depends on the variety of pepper there. Black pepper will clear the dog’s sinuses… but cayenne pepper (the red stuff) is actually pretty harmful to dogs, especially in an olfactory sense.
Oh cool, that was the type I specified, the one time I was asked which I was buying. I knew it to be a lot more potent, on a dish, than the regular stuff. So I was used to buying it, in real life.
I guess my DM was clued up, after all.
https://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_licu0plLoW1qbykam.jpg
A.k.a. the Rod of Lordly Might. I love that. Even made an epic version of it. Same character also created an epic Drawmij’s Instant Fortress. Which was more as the name implies, than the simple tower created by the mundane item.
Min/Max means something COMPLETELY different in real life.
Swiss Army knife and a multi tool instead of anything individual thing, Orb-Fu instead of throwing knives… Encumbrance rules suck in real life!
It’s a game term though
I’d go with
Gerber Multi-Tool
Throwing knife x 2
Belt First Aid Kit (with a supply of needed Meds)
Small Monocular
Small L.E.D. Flashlight https://www.harborfreight.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/i/m/image_20376.jpg
Aircraft Crash Axe https://www.pilotman.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/aircraft-crash-axe-300×277.jpg
Zip Ties x 10
Zip Tie Cutter
Handgun
Spare loaded magazine x 2
Considering it seems her orbs throw alot of light around the flashlight probably might not be needed and you could use the scissors from a good multitool instead of the zip tie cutter.
They said they glow, but don’t emmit any light
But you can see the objects which are illuminated by them. So long as Sydney’s brain is getting the necessary sensory information, we do not need to worry about petty universal laws.
Nah, just show dabbler some great hentai pages in exchange for some lending of hammer space.
I would point out spiderman doesn’t need zip cuffs… that is what web fluid is for. If he needs something longer lasting he can just bend a street sigh around someone. That said… good point on the rest.
It’s a little expensive to bend a street sign around someone. Who’s ganna pay for that sign?
Who is going to pay for the traffic nightmare you created by removing the Stop sign?
Yes…. because super heroes in comic books TOTALLY care about damage to the city. Destroying a fire hydrant to take down the fire user rather then just grabbing a fire extinguisher for example.. Not to mention superman.. I really don’t need an example there.
“Who is going to pay for the traffic nightmare you created by removing the Stop sign?”
Superhero Insurance will pay for it and Damage Control will fix it, or at least clean up the mess.
if i had to guess, they can’t say that Cap’s shield is adamantium for the same reason they can’t use the word “mutant.” that being copyright issues. also, Spider-man would not need zip-cuffs. and he punches hard enough, that him using brass knuckles would be like us wrapping string cheese around our knuckles. however, he probably could use to have some other gadgets like lockpicks and such. i think he does have some gadgets of his own making, like tracer “bugs” that specifically tune into his spider-sense.
I can remember spider-man having light belt, bugs and tracker (can use to scan other frecuencies), some kind of air breather system and movil phone pouch (at least in the ultimate version). And the spare fluid for the webshooters (multiple kind depends of how veteran he is).
There is one thing missing from Spider Man’s outfit.
A fly? Every spider needs a fly.
Touché.
Admittedly, the crowbar saw axe isn’t the worst idea ever.
once you remove all the other crap
Everyone should have a sidearm, 2 spare mags (all team members should be issued the same sidearm to facilitate mag swapping), multitool/leatherman, straight blade knife with glass break, plasticuffs, paracord 50′, flashlight, chemlight and some body armor (Max and Hiro excepted). Sydney should also have a net, and a small wrecking bar to use with her lighthook.
Not the same sidearm. A weapon could be too *small* for Anvil’s hands and simultaneously too *large* for Halo’s. And not strictly the same caliber either: Anvil could handle vastly more recoil than Sydney and – unlike Syd – has no other standard means of doing severe damage at range.
However, there’s a lot to be said for having only two or three standard calibers with one or two standard magazines for each caliber (and the magazines easily told apart at a glance). And a standard color-coding of magazines for different kinds of bullets (normal, incendiary, armor-piercing, etc) regardless of caliber.
Anvil would ABSORB all the recoil.
Also, Sydney’s already been issued a sidearm.
Hers is very distinctive though. Unless any of the other recruits also have theirs in a plastic bag.
So in Anvils case quite a few parts of gunplay 101 would be unnecessary or or even hinder her ability to hit things, right?
For example she is not affected by recoil in a way that hampers her ability to hit things, so her rate of fire should only be limited by what the gun can handle without damage.
Which could make her one of the few individuals for whom, with enough training, dual wielding oversized pistols might be practical. (Aiming with two weapons at once is propably still not that easy, but without recoil screwing up everything it might be doable. not an expert, though, so informed opinions are very welcome ^^)
I think you are right that recoil will be reduced, but only to a degree. Punching Anvil is like hitting a pillow (per the thug who kicked off The Battle at the Steak House Car Park®) so Anvil’s absorption of kinetic energy is not 100%. Thus the gun will still have some recoil But not very much, so the implications about her being able to fire more accurately than others, of similar skill, is true.
Sadly Anvil’s training is in martial arts (two stars per the cast list) as opposed to marksmanship (not even earning a single star, so probably no more than basic training). Recoil is not the only factor involved in shooting, and Anvil simply may not have the other qualities that are needed to be a good marksman. But, given the advantage you have deduced, it certainly would be worth her while improving her skill, as much as she is able, either way.
One of the bigger flaws with two gun shooting is that you are unable to use the off-hand to support the firing hand. Which means that the aim is intrinsically worse than with a proper stance and grip. This thanks to my Mythbusters ‘training’, rather than experience, mind. Recoil plays a big factor in making this mind, so you are right that Anvil would have better potential here.
However internal factors also come into play. Such as the heartbeat, breathing and your own muscles needing to counteract the pull of gravity (dealing with keeping the gun up, at arms length remember), each of which create some degree of wobble. Snipers can hold their breath, slow their heartbeat and use a mount (be it tripod, wall or other) to reduce each of these factors. Two gun fighters are unlikely to be in a position to do those sorts of things.
So a two-gun technique would still be worse, even for Anvil, than a standard one, recommended for cops. In my non-expert opinion.
Smart Sydney. Good Sydney. Listen to your ADD Drill Instructor… She is wise beyond your immediate gratification…
So her good / bad side are based off of Mathias’s words of wisdom that had babies with her subconscious super nerd, genre savviness. That’s adorable. Especially when one thinks that if that’s her good side, then that means she’s only had Min Max her entire life.
Still both are adorable and super cute, angel banged, psychopomps.
Ah, you might want to look up that last word… I don’t expect to see any psychopomps in this comic.
(There have been several in Gunnerkrigg Court.)
I know what a psychopomp is. It’s a mental representation of something that acts as a moral guide for a persons soul. A Spirit Guide.
Although the other use is for a spirit that guides a soul into the afterlife. There is a better word for that type of spiritual guide (the angel and demon that has a mental representation of Id and Ego), but for the life of me I can’t remember what it’s called.
I’m coming up blank.
But, please feel free to call me Yorp
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodAngelBadAngel [Oh I know they’re troperific. But there’s a single word, word for them XD.]
But Yorp sounds like a good enough name ^_^.
She’s wising up.
“…Ok, minus the laser sight as well”
the author seems to have no idea what a laser range finder is used for; it’s not a sight of any kind, it’s a tool for measuring distance from A to B.
It was just a shorthand phrase. From past commentaries we know him to be well aware of such things.
I meant having a laser sight on a melee weapon is probably not efficacious. A rangefinder would be sensible to carry around probably.
The Marvel films can’t use the word Adamantium. Fox owns that, along with Mutants.
Seems strange that the company that basically copywrote the word ‘mutant’, can’t even use it’s own word without being sued :D
At least until Fox’s licence runs out. I think Disney will not want to renew the licence and bring it all in-house. Also, Wolverine gets to join the Avengers. How long can Hugh Jackman play a guy that does not age?
Huge Jackman is gonna do his last movie as wolverine (base of old man logan series). And other actor is gonna play wolverine in the future.
OMG she forgot the MOST important thing in her list:DUCTAPE!
if the martian prove us one thing is that you can fix just about anything with ductape:)
It reminds me of an old joke people use in fanfiction occasionally
“So what’s different about this swiss army knife”
“It teleports the Swiss Army to you immediately”
Wait, isn’t the Swiss Army the entire male population of Switzerland? Way to bankrupt a nation, dude.
I’m assuming that closing it up would teleport them back
They would still have all the men in the Swiss Navy.
https://tinyurl.com/zw9qlz7
Please draw more of that gorgeous Zarya. Armwrestling with Anvil for example.
Sadly, this busts one of my theories: That Zarya is the result of a Peggy/Anvil fusion dance.
Fine, she can armwrestle with She Hulk instead.
When I first saw the vote incentive art, I thought Peggy was fantasizing about being a Super. Then I read DaveB’s comments – who is this ‘Zayra’? Quick Google search turned up a Puerto Rican pop star, nothing else. I will admit to being out of touch.
She’s pretty hot, whoever she is. She and Peggy could be sisters.
She is a character in a new game (there have been hentai pictures of the female characters for months now), and apparently Zayra is modelled after someone who works at Blizzard
The game is “overwatch”.
Yes, have several hentai so already knew the name of the game :P
Zarya, not Zayra.
Sidney has good instincts with the electrical tape, wire, and wire cutter, though. I’d grab a few zip-ties, some WD-40, the best compact multitool on the market, and the mechanical lock-pick gun thing because I’m *not* loading myself down, see? Oh, and it’s time for a smartphone upgrade.
Sidney should also think about the glories of a tactical bag that can be dropped quickly in a combat situation. That’s where you stick the rope/ice ax/collapsible ten foot pole/whatnot.
Sydney’s wrist com actually has quite a few functions in it. Most of what you’d find on a phone nowadays, plus other stuff.
Good point.
I am thinking that Sydney’s combat bag will have the smoke/pepper grenades on a timer, so it can go off after she steps away from the bag and everybody else gets disabled.