Grrl Power #471 – Ordnance disposal: Expert level
So Max is fast. Not Flash Silver Age light speed fast. That creates severe writing problems as far as I’m concerned, even if you ignore all the shockwaves, and explosive friction and X-ray blasts. Even still, Max’s speed is the first thing any opponent of hers needs to be able to counter. Thanks to Sydney’s heads up and her speed, Max gets a +17 to initiative. (Or a -9 or a +5 or +2d6 depending on whatever system you prefer)
I’m pretty pleased with this page, I wasn’t sure if blurring the backgrounds instead of Max would give the effect I wanted but I think it turned out good. The only real failing, art wise, is that Kat doesn’t seem to have any reaction to someone blowing up the door to the chamber. My thought when I started penciling was that she hadn’t had time to react yet, but I don’t think it reads that way. I guess I could go the other way and say her Lycanthrope reflexes allowed her to track what was happening and saw that Max was neutralizing the threat… but – while Lycans are definitely stronger than humans and a bit faster, but not “sit calmly while someone defuses a live grenade mid flight” fast. So, you know, live and learn. I’ll get it next time.
BTW the grenade contained silver buckshot, iron, and I’m not sure what the 3rd one is. Lots of fairy tail creatures have real specific weaknesses, so it could be anything. Wood pellets of assorted types, or salt? I think either of those would get vaporized by the shaped charge behind them. Though I guess they could be little hollow sabot rounds with all sorts of stuff in them, like wood, salt, I don’t know, seashells, baby teeth. Of course that may be over thinking it. A wood nymph might react just as badly to white phosphorous as a human would.
I have a surprise for you guys. Eee! I’m so excited! So Wearing the Cape is one of my favorite superhero novel series. I’ve mentioned it before, usually when a new volume comes out, and guess what?
<—— Hmm. One of those gals looks familiar.
A while ago, Marion G. Harmon, the author of WtC (and as it turns out, reader of Grrl Power) contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in co-writing a cross over story with him. Naturally I said yes, even though I’ve never really written much in the way of prose before. The basic premise of the book is, as the “Team-Ups & Crossovers” subtitle suggests, Astra (the WtC protagonist) goes tumbling across dimensions and bumps into various other realities including a few people you might recognize if you’re a voracious consumer of all things superhero. Now keep in mind, the chapter in the Grrl-verse is just one section of the book, but this is a canon story for Sydney and co. It takes place just a bit in the future of the comic. Sydney is a private, but there’s nothing that spoils anything between then and now. Here’s a like to the kindle version. The paperback will be available in the coming weeks.
I mostly wrote Sydney’s sections and Marion mostly wrote Astra’s, but there was a lot of back and forth and editing and I think it came out really good. (Though you can safely assume any dip in the quality of the prose is one of my sections. :)
The November vote incentive is updated. It’s sort of a teaser from the crossover. It doesn’t give anything away really, it’s like a comic book cover that has elements of the story inside but doesn’t actually spoil anything. “Ah, I see in this issue of X-men, Wolverine fights Sabertooth in a forest. Again. Apparently, the thing that Wolverine is best at is maintaining muti-decade grudges.”
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. (As soon as I get up. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like :)
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Okay so these guys don’t even care that there is no wifi, no magic wards on the front door, and where were the two guys, these people need to up their security if they are going to stay secret for long
It’s a narrow door. All Halo need do is stand there with her shield while Maxima takes them all out in the blink of an eye…
This is assuming this is the only group attacking The Council, and that that is the only door they’re attacking from.
Well she has taken flight, shields up, so it’s possible she’s going to replace the door once Max is clear, leaving the attackers with no way into the meeting & stuck with a pissed off Max…
They’d have Max surrounded and outnumbered, the poor suckers. But to that Halo is coming from behind them, relative to the door, and has to get around them and Max to get in doorway as Max passes thru it. Sydney might be handier behind them, using shield to block their escape and lighthook to trip up, snag hands, knock off weapon aiming and so on. The bad guys are NOT getting thru a doorway that Max is standing in.
Let me try to unmangle that second sentence:
…But Halo is coming from behind the bad guys, relative to bad guy / Max confrontation, and must get around bad guys and Max, and get in the doorway as Max passes through it.
Was having sneeze attack while typing.
At least you showed us that you can live up to your screen name. ;)
The bad guys are between Max and an immovable wall (Sydney’s shield).
Just think about what that means.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place, or painful more likely…
Or like being locked in prison with Rorschach
must… resist…. thrilling intent reference… *fails cha/int/wis whatever resist! check*
The dummy’s with soulless eyes that stare menacingly into your soul!
yeah they’re doomed :P
also bloody hand print? stupid wizards leaving their dna everywhere. then again they might have a self destruct fail safe?
¿Who sais its the mages blood?
It might be a virgin’blood.
*eyerolls* Virgin blood is a late puratin creation and was specifically meant as a means to get the virgins soul. The idea being that a virgin was more likely to be pure and innocent. Mythos from later copycat fanon debates whether it was a prestige thing for demons to capture pure souls or whether they provided better power to corrupt one. Regardless, it would be useless as a control spell.
If it’s the wizards blood it could be a sympathetic control spell. You get more control over the thing, but damaging it can hurt the controler, thus the blood appearing in a strange way.
If, more likely, it’s their blood, it’s probably a result of maxima slapping the helmet with superspeed and superdense hand deforming the glass so when their face smashes into the indent it paints the glass red.
Actually, depending on the system of magic in use, it could be anyone’s blood, most likely a virgin’s or supernatural creature’s. Most `thought-out’ magic systems make use of a variation of Jung’s collective unconscious…tapping into the power of belief. Regardless of how the idea of virgin blood being extra potent came into being, that so many people/entities accept it as a given imbues it with tremendous power. A real-world parallel is how people go nuts for brand names over `generic’, when they’re usually made in the same Asian sweatshops (for sneakers and such) or the same domestic factories (Malt-O-Meal…the `cheap’ store brand cereal…is owned by Post, for example).
Because *everyone* knows virgin blood is better for spells! And since most spell systems also really heavily on the caster’s own belief…why would s/he buck the system? It can’t hurt, might help…get me the virgin! There’s a comic convention downtown as we speak!
The blood, or whatever it may be is, not on the glass; you can see the shield has been knocked away and has been broken. The mark is on the face of the mannequin itself.
It’s not Maxima’s hand print, or their face breaking from Maxima’s hand.
Maxima slept him with a backhand, and thumb is pointing up. The handprint is off the front, and thumb pointing down.
You can’t say what position Maxima’s hand was in, at the time she hit him, it is not depicted. What is shown is the position that her hand was in by the end of the swing. Given her speed in bullet-time though, she could have easily altered her hand positioning and closed her fingers.
But it is a right hand back hand.
The hand print is a left hand from the palm.
You can get the same result, with the left hand. Note that the only point it is bloody, is where the tip of the left thumb curved back enough to contact the manikin’s philtrum. Had this been a right hand, the entire thumb would have been in contact with the surface of the face.
Thus proving my point definitively. ;-)
*holds dew claw to nose, with paw facing your direction*
You try backhanding something with your thumb pointing down. Her joints are still human normal. You can do it, but you lose a lot of leverage in it from having your elbow turned that way.
Also, alternate reason for the bloody hand print. Maybe they’re not just puppets for the caster, but carrying around the enslaved consciousness of the caster’s last victim.
First, I drain your soul, and put it in this specially prepared mannequin.
Then I order the mannequin to do my bidding, with all of your competence and cleverness, but none of your vaunted and troublesome free will.
It’s probably the casters. Probably. The caster is probably not that evil.
Probably.
If you check my proposals on a couple of the other threads, I indicate that he was moving his head and upper torso forwards. Thus his face would have been in the position to leave the mark at that angle, whilst Maxima could still strike in a natural pose.
It is only because he got flung back, after being hit, that you do not see him in the leaning forwards position. However you can see the beginning of the move I describe, above. Plus his and Maxima’s legs and lower torsos have moved past each other, indicating that forward movement was involved.
Although most will have been Maxima’s given how fast she is moving, there would still be plenty of scope for him to have done the maneuver I describe. Not to mention he demonstrated his ability to move with serious super speed, by entering the room and firing before the explosion had finished!
Interesting point about the curvature of the thumb meaning only the tip is showing, but bending your fingers that far back as well is highly uncomfortable or natural
I totally agree. Which is why I have previously stated that it is the manikin’s face which would have deformed. A human face would have a broken nose, but a rubber (or similar) manikin would just bounce back into shape.
By the way, if you think back this is not the first time that there have been handedness issues. I can argue these points (with a bit of stretching…. err… deformation required), but the only real one is the intent. I believe it is the intent to show the force of the blow, at the culmination of a devastatingly fast dash.
This would not be something I think Dave would do with a human face (if you recall the pixelation of a person’s arm being ripped off), but he can get away with it on a manikin face.
Whilst doing the handprint the way it has been done, I take as a way to make it clear, at a glance that it is just that. Finger and thumbs, all together, when drawn as a single bloody shade, would be nowhere near as distinct.
However conveying the force is not the most important thing, as the dynamics were mostly about speed. And the conclusion is the gag of the visuals, combined with Sydney’s dialogue. Which works equally well if it is a ‘wound’ or a ‘magical controlling mark’. Barring the fact that the latter creates confusion.
Which I think would have been apparent to Dave. And, with his eye for detail, he could have moved it over to the other side of the face or chosen an abstract design (say a pentagram) painted in blood. Still creepy, but causing no confusion.
Hence why I put it down to slight, but explainable, continuity issues.
Where, of course, I could just have erred in the various deductions I have made. The opposing camp does have a lot of very reasonable points, which I have to work hard to counter.
Personally feel, like several others, that the handprint has nothing to do with Maxi, because you also have to remember that Manny had had the face-shield in place
You’re forgetting one important thing, Max bleeds blue, can’t be hers unless Dave oopsed.
So… Maxima moved towards the grenade and disasembed it before the fuse was activated.
The base of the grenade (in Maxima’s hand) probably contains the fuse. It could be a delay fuze with a Graze-fuse and turn-counter safety as backup.
The conical part in the middle could be a base-initiated EFOP charge (Explosion Formed Projectile), which generates a shockwave to launch the payload.
The nose contains various types of payload.
Basically, this kind of “Beehive grenade” acts as a huge shotgun or small-scale Claymore mine.
You mean something like a “Bouncing Betty” land mine, launching to the desired location then blowing, only shot out a grenade launcher? Sounds about right…
The U.S. has a 40 mm grenade that does that. But it bounces up to head height. The ‘Bouncing Betty’ land mine went to typical crotch height to explode.
Ok, minimum arming distance for an M203 or comparable 40x43mm hi-low grenade round is 10m, assuming the rifling is fresh. She looks closer than 10m, and closing fast on a projectile that is so slow you can watch it go downrange.
In short, that grenade would not have time to arm before Maxima got to it… assuming you weren’t going for something nasty like an HEDP effect, it’d use a simple low brisance bursting charge, rather than using explosives to forge the nose of the projectile into a hypersonic dart.
I seriously hope that this angle means that Sydney is getting into the room and possibly expanding her barrier to seal the doorway shut and letting Max fight the golems in the safety of the hallway instead of with the counsel members.
I actually thought that is what she did. I didn’t think that was Sydney in the last panel but one of the counsel members being protected by her shield. I took me a couple readings to realize it was Sydney.
yeah, i’m all for anime style facial quirks, and horny-thoughts-nosebleeds, etc. but this is one time that “i” think Dave missed the mark when drawing Sydney’s face in the last panel, it’s just… wrong… it’s way too distorted looking to me to recognize as Sydney until others poited it out… everything ELSE on the page: Spot-ON, Bravo!!… Sydney’s face in the last panel… WTH?
That’s exactly the look DaveB was going for: it’s a “WTFJGHJFTFJFGFJD?” moment for Sydney
i guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree then, sorry… i agree that he’s going for a surprised/startled look on Sydney’s face… no argument there, what I’m talking about is how NON-Sydney-like (or even ANY character’s) the physical ink-on-the-page cartoon drawing looks… it is distinctly “warped” in my eye and not recognizable to me… that ONE portion of that one panel is my only quibble about this entire page… meh, i can live with it… no biggie.
Hopefully now that Dave has put Sydney’s glasses in, that will have changed. Not that anybody’s face is particularly recognisable when they are displaying such extreme emotion mind. So that never did bother me, at all. But we do get accustomed to such things as glasses and hair-colour, so an unexpected change, like that, can make a difference as to how we identify someone.
I think… for a third “element” in an anti-weird ordnance… fire. Or just a flashbang. Wood dust makes no sense, vampires are only inconvenienced by a stake through the heart, and I think it’s the “through the heart” part that’s important. But fire works on most things, and a flashbang would blind and disorient adequately to allow the rest of the squad time to fire.
I considered holy water, but that seems more effective at disrupting murder mannequin magic than anything else. Plus, what’d stop a fleet of Cardinals from blessing all the oceans of the world and letting rain take out anything vulnerable?
Assuming they survived the explosion a large number of small wooden shards might end up with one piercing the heart. Given six vampires, in the room, the odds go up that one of them might bite the dust.
But you are right that wood be a long shot. :-D
However you missed the significance of Dave’s mentioning:
Many different types of plant or wood are considered to be a bane to various creatures.*
In light of the latter emphasised text, note Dave’s other comment:
With enough types of wood, chosen based on the demographics of the Councils members, you end up with a credible threat to many different types of creatures. In addition to the chance of getting a vampire too.
* Much of this will be nonsense, given the “Makers of Fine Magic Wands Since 9,998 W.R.”. But some elements, which leapt out, match legends I have heard before. So it saved me hunting for a
more historicallyvaguely credible source. For these purposes anyhow.Wood is very light. Simple wood pellets would act a bit like styrofoam BBs. Splinters, unless huge, arn’t about to pierce any rib cages.
Dave did acknowledge that it was not very practical, although his further idea of enclosing them in sabots would be a way to improve precisely the issue you raised (and reduce the likelihood of them being destroyed in the explosion). Not that either version is likely to make a practical weapon using mundane technology.
But they can always cheat, if they have access to either magic or super science. And various of the factions do. As may whoever is behind this.
The three capsules are.
Iron. lethal to the elves and the fey.
Silver. Lethal to the weres, and harmful to the vampires.
Tax forms. Lethal to everything except demons, and annoying to them.
:-D
I see that you are going with … Death and taxes. Maybe they will cut a deal?
Well, at least after death, taxes are no longer a problem. At least not to the person who died. Unless possibly they live in Discworld or some similar universe.
Actually inheritance taxes do cause severe problems, at times. Some can be contested for decades, or until the lawyers use up all the inheritance to cover their fees. Or all the beneficiaries die.
Did you ever play with lawn darts? Big metal tip, plastic fins, guaranteed to pierce anything it strikes?
How about super sonic lawn darts? Big metal tip, hurtling at improbable speeds, piercing, deforming, and even exiting small defenseless creatures like whumpus, and jabberwokies, or, um, was it Tum-Tum trees? Dragging behind them plastic vanes that kept their flight path true and straight? Oh, right, that wasn’t a real thing. Shame, woulda been fun, up until someone shot their own eye out.
How about super sonic lawn darts with metal tips and wood vanes? The metal tip pierces the target, the wood vane keeps its course true and snaps off inside the target. Might need to sabot fire them to keep the wood intact, but if you get creative on the idea you could probably figure out a cluster bomb version.
And yes silver is a distinct enough metal that people with experience working with it can identify it by sight (kinda like gold, it stands out against other metals) I’d expect a were creature to make a point of learning to identify it.
For that matter, I wouldn’t bother with separate iron and silver slugs. I’d use iron jacketed silver. Silver for mass (filling the role of lead), iron (or steel) for strength.
Silver is generally believed to be useful against all `supernatural’ creatures such as weres, vampires, ghouls, etc. Iron is mankind’s middle finger to the fey (realistically, goes back to the dawning of the Iron Age, when those tribes that used iron weapons beat the crap out of ones using bronze…we’re most familiar with the Celtic mythos, when they moved into Britain, Ireland, etc. Interestingly enough, those legends inspired Tolkien’s elves and their going `across the Western sea’…but that’s neither here nor there).
The third could be and I would assume *should* be something like depleted uranium pellets or possibly tungsten alloy. Silver and iron have the two main chunks of the Council taken care of, but you’d want something to penetrate alien armor and such. Traditionally, even a flesh would with silver will mess up a were, possibly even poison them unto death, and iron is supposed to burn fey and break their ability to wield magic. So they may be operating under the assumption that even a taste of those will make supernatural and fey creatures hors de combat.
But even supernaturals, fey, etc will have to expend energy (read: healing/regeneration) against your ordinary average AP munitions…plus, might take out aliens, too.
And they’ve probably all been blessed by a priest, a rabbi, and a pagan high priestess. Might not help, but can’t hurt, right?
I’d be careful with trying to stack blessings. Many religions frown on you participating in other religions (see infidels, idolatry, and similar concepts) so I would rather expect that, for example, God may well revoke His blessings upon your ammo if you then turned to get pagan blessings as well.
True. On the other paw though, you might get lucky.
In a scenario like that, I would want my mummy.
Actually, I’d go with Dave’s notion of white phosphorous. Nasty stuff, will hurt a broad range of creatures even if it doesn’t kill them, and keeps even those who survive it from doing much other than run around in agony unless they happen to be immune to pain.
You can easily explain the Holy Water trick by saying that the blessing doesn’t last. Or that you can only bless small quantities at a time.
Another could be that only pure water can be made Holy. That would explain why oceans are out of bounds, and could make for an interesting plot where priests are trying to make a city’s water supply clean enough to sanctify, thereby flushing out the supernatural elements in the city.
And the supernaturals are countering by getting select minerals, such as fluorine, added to the water to avoid that fate.
Hmmm, golems of some sort? lLooks like we have ourselves a mage hunt! TALLY HO, SYDNEY!
Could be simple Marrionettakinesis (ability to take control of and manipulate other objects and induvidals into your mentally controlled puppets)
:-O
Well we did see Gwen practicing with a Muppet earlier! With her accomplice Dabbler! Who has all four hands out of sight, below the table!
:-O :-O :-O
If Dabbler has all four hands below the table, it’s probably because she remembered to not wear any underwear today.
Doubt it’s Dabbler, if nothing else than because Marrionettakinesis are a type of psionics and not magic and Dabbler has not displayed any skill with psionics so far.
hence the SO FAR part, this could be the first, but in that case it’s rather… unconventional way of doing it considering the Marionette part is literal with Marionettakinesis, controlling the object(s) with ethereal threads the same way a puppeteer would control a marionette
Evil mannequins indeed!!
I think it most likely that the projectile wasn’t meant to kill anyone but to cause enough damage/confusion for the rest of the SWAT types to use weapons more specifically chosen for individual council members. Whoever is behind this attack obviously knows a lot about the target and the inherent weaknesses/strengths of the council and is intending on overcoming them. Unfortunately for those plans Max is probably way outside the bell curve of relative power and abilities. I don’t see how the attackers could plan on entering without raising an alarm when all it took was a single person with a texting device to ruin the surprise. Either they didn’t plan on Max and Sydney being there or they were relying on other intelligence to suggest such a ploy would be effective, as in they knew a lot more about how the council meetings are protected. A few ccd cameras and someone to watch the video screen would have been just as effective or more so and more importantly EASY to implement. Either way Max and Sydney just illustrated very clearly why supers, even world famous ones, should be included in council business.
It was probably expected to kill a few of them. We can see from Kat’s reaction that silver would have severe effects on the weres in the room, so it would probably kill some of them.
But yes, nothing more than a first breach hit.
in traditional lore just the touch of silver would be like trying to touch a piece of white hot iron straight out of a burning forge for a were, so having that embedded into your gut by an explosion would probably set them ablaze, on the inside
Kat is a new were. Until an old were, who actually knows more about his race than what makes it to the Saturday morning cartoons speaks up, I’ll withhold judgement on whether or reaction means the silver really is dangerous.
I mean, it’s probably dangerous, but we really don’t know just based on her reaction.
New yes, but she does have a seat at the council table. If her only role was to evoke sympathy, from Arcon, she accomplished that prior to the meeting starting. So could have been sent to the back seats, whilst Ingsol started proceedings.
Given how many delegates there are, up in the galleries, I can see that it would cause serious discontent if a clueless lycanthrope were to be given priority over them- Unless she had something to offer.
Plus you would expect any ethical organisation (such as the Council appears to be) to warn new members of things which pose an everyday threat to their lives.
Although I do concede that it could just be a Hollywood-inspired reaction, I am confident enough that it is not, that I do intend to cite it, in future. Unless we get some clue to the contrary, of course.
I’d imagine “Stay the hell away from silver!” to be one of the first lesson she got as a new were. If silver is actually dangerous.
Yeah, silver-aversion is probably an innate ability, like vampires and getting a sun-tan
you CAN see a reaction to the silver from an older were, considering the hand of Gregor are in the typical “Don’t-touch-this-stuff-cuss-I’m-terrified-of-it” stance from most other cartoons in the same panel as Kat’s panicked expression, whereas he is calmly resting his arms in his lap when the thing initially lands.
Good, observant, point.
Contents of the third vial: someone weaponized The Unmaker.
This seems the most likely I’ve read here so far. Even if it doesn’t directly antagonize magic metabolisms, it’s probably at least a little explosive by itself. Then there’s the as-yet unexplored capabilities of Sydney’s weaponized spaghetti sauce recipe….
Capsaicin is already a weapon – it’s the primary component in pepper spray.
You don’t need to ‘weaponize’ The Unmaker – it’s already a weapon. The important thing to note, here, is that Sydney enjoys EATING this weapon.
Great, now I can’t get the image out of my mind of Sydney jumping on the third vial, screaming ‘I got this!’ before chucking the contents whole, at the same time impressing some kind of fire elemental or sentient lava golem.
Congrats on the Wearing the cape team up, been a long term fans of the series and have even mentioned it here a few times myself a long while back!! Glad to see you read it too its a great series and Harmon is a fantastic writer that can hook you into a book easily.
Edit note – unless a pun is intended – I think you meant fairy tale – not fairy tail (do fairies HAVE tails? Some do, I guess… but anyway) :D
Other than that – loving the “bullet speed sfx” view. Max RULES! Mannequin drools… (lol)
“Your slip is showing.”
That is no slip, it is Cthulhu!
Sorry. That was the significant quote of an old fairy story. The faery in that one, however, had cow tails.
I didn’t realize how obscure it might be until, after posting, I realized it wasn’t even on the first page of Google. LOTS of political stuff, but nothing about a human surviving an evening of dancing with faeries through good manners and discretion.
It did slip under my radar.
Is Harem in the book? It’s got to be tough to keep track of her in prose, since “Daphne goes here and does this” isn’t enough information when there’s more of her around. I can already see Sydney going off on a tangent about how hard it is to describe.
“Daphne ported on top of the- no, I don’t mean she left, she’s still behind me. I mean, she’s there too, the goth one didn’t move from there. I mean the one with the glasses. So then she grabbed the- no, I mean the goth one grabbed- Maybe it’ll work better if I use those nicknames they have for her. What were those again? Hey, does she really need those glasses or are they just a fashion statement?”
Dave rightly decided to limit Hope’s exposure to just a couple of Harems, and they were only described, not named.
Hope got to appreciate Super Hiro, or course.
I imagine a discussion about how English is inadequate to describe Harem’s particular situation will come up in the comic at some point.
Didn’t she hit with her right hand?
Time travelers seem to have the same problem describing when something happened (or would have happened if the time stream had not been altered).
This is why you need version control.
Depending on your fiction, the iron would have to be Cold Iron for it to effectively work against supernatural creatures, and I think the explosion from the grenade may be considered ‘the heat of a forge’ and render the iron ineffective.
In a lot of modern fiction Steel is effective if not quite AS effective, but Cast and Wrought Iron is considered the best modern anti-fey weaponry.
Dave, what gets Harmon (and I’m assuming yourself) more money, the kindle or the paperback?
I don’t know what Amazon’s take is on each product, but I’m assuming it’s a similar percentage whether it’s digital or meatspace. That said, the kindle version doesn’t have production costs, so unless it’s a few bucks more, probably the kindle version?
FYI There isn’t any room to fit those capsules in the front of a 40mm HEDP grenade that you depicted. The fuse, arming assembly, and spitback detonator take up all that space.
The attackers looked like SWAT but were not SWAT, underneath. The same probably applies to the weapons.
Somebody wanted to sow dissent between the Council and Archon, by having the appearance of SWAT attacking. Whilst giving them the extra edge to have capabilities that human troops do not.
In this case I am sure that factions with access to super-technomagic can make the components you listed smaller than Earth technology can. Or replace them with something more efficient.
Well, either that, or this is all another Arianna-plot, specifically designed to create a situation wherein the Council is forced to view ARCHON as a peer-group in full. (Okay, it’s not likely, but I’m still a bit cheesed about the whole, “Let’s not tell the mundies that there are predators walking around among them and hope that no one too important gets killed” aspect of the Council’s set-up.)
As regards the latter, it is a situation which has existed for 3,000 years. So it is not of Archon’s creation. Yet they are already working on how to get rid of it (per Ingsol’s statement). Clearly that would take time to do so, without catastrophic results, on both sides. Which is why they have already agreed to work together, in the meanwhile.
Given that has already been implemented, there really would be no need for such shenanigans by Arianna. Nor for that matter would it fall under her remit. She is a civilian, in charge of public relations. Whilst she did have some assistance from Arc-Dark (for the disguise spells that Mr Amorphous and Achilles used), the bank job was just a PR stunt (albeit one of dubious ethics and legality).
Whereas this (if the alternate option you proposed is valid) would be an out and out black ops operation. If it was Archon, then it would be down to Arc-Dark alone.
Potentially they might have staged this, in order to make the team look better But the plan implemented would likely have caught Maxima by surprise, and the resultant deaths would have worsened Archon’s situation. Which sounds like a rather unproductive scheme.
Not impossible mind. But it would make Arc-Dark enemies of Arc-SWAT, if it were to be uncovered.
Max’s “world of cardboard” moment probably came much sooner than this. Sidney, OTOH, hasn’t done this just yet. It’s all fun an games until someone loses an eye.
Maxima has fought in two wars. Whilst some of her opponents were supers, most would have been mundane humans.
Maxima is a soldier, she will have no qualms about killing someone, who is attacking her and her allies. Her reason for restraint was not to protect the assailant, it was to prevent his corpse from becoming a lethal projectile, powerful enough to destroy part of the complex, and any unseen bystanders in the area!
Didnt max mention some stuff about what she did in the military aside from kill rival supers? Something like mine disposal and other gigs that would suck to deal with against something not immune to said damage. Ah here we go, “Primarily I supported troops wherever I was needed, clearing out mines, scouting, dealing with air power and indigenous supers.”
True. Note the ‘primarily’ though. And ” I supported troops wherever I was needed” would actually result in mass fatalities, in the opposing forces, when she does that. Bank robbers you can disarm and imprison, easily, with her capabilities. Whereas a battalion of tanks, shelling your troops, needs to be destroyed, ASAP. Every moment’s delay would end up with more allied fatalities.
Not to forget: “Dealing with air power” usually would result in getting said air-power out of the air in the fastest way possible
Max is definitely in her “least amount it takes” mode. A good soldier in the soldieriest sense.
Soon to be up on Ebay: “Stealth Combat Mannikin kit, used once. (Re)Assembly required. No guarantee that all parts are present or functional.”
When the rabbit thinks you’re doing things fast…
Kat is a hare. And those are the fast ones. Rabbits aren’t that fast.
hoppity hop, you think you got me, nope imma hop one more time just outta arm’s reach
I’ve been pondering this for some time now, why doesn’t Halo try projecting her force bubble around others? I.E. Instead of her being on the inside of the bubble, the baddies are. We know that the bubble does not allow things out (or in). So, instant jail cell. Unless, of course, this was explained some time ago, and I’ve simply forgotten about it.
The force field always forms centered on Halo. She simply has not discovered a way to do otherwise. Yet. As evidenced by the fact that, in order to block Vehmence’s aggro aura, Halo had to raise the shield with both of them on the inside! Thus leaving her no means to protect herself, should he try to kill her.
Currently, the force field orb has no known mode for forming the shield anywhere without Sydney in it. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been trapped in it with Vehemence during that fight. Maybe once she levels it up a bit, a mode like that could be added, but likely, it’s purpose is to shield HER (and anybody with her), not to cage others. It seems to be Dave’s version of ‘the Perfect Shield’ where nothing not on a quantum level can get through except a certain amount of light and sound (oddly enough, it doesn’t filter air, blocking it outright instead; maybe that can change next upgrade).
Forget catching a bullet, she disassembles mid-air grenades.
Holy shit.
Yup, that is awesome.
If she is in a car, that breaks down, she can probably repair it, before the vehicle stops moving.
Now that’s what I call onomatopoeia.
I purchased the ebook yesterday and definitely enjoyed your addition to Marion’s story. Keep up the good work :D
That would be more like my addition to Dave’s story, but I’m sure we’re both glad that you liked it. ;)
It is on my must-buy list (when I can afford it, or if anyone asks for a Christmas present suggestion). Looking forward to it!
*wags tail excitedly*
Is that a left-biased tail wag or a right-biased tail wag*?
*No, this is not a political question.**
**At least, not a human politics question.
How dare you accuse me of being a brain-damaged* lefty!
* Your article is a bit out of date, as further research has shown that some types of brain damage can result in dogs who can only wag to the left. Which is commonly linked with aggressive behaviour (for reasons which can be inferred from your article).
Called it on the grenade containing anti-creature stuff instead of normal boom-stuff. No canned sunlight, apparently, but I guess silver and cold iron could mess with vampires as well as sunlight, except minus the flames, maybe. Magic in general does NOT like cold iron, silver, and salt. And if garlic still works, it might not kill the vampires, but will probably have them cowering in a corner and easier to defeat.
Though Max should not have just dropped the ammo; if one of them DID have canned sunlight or a bigger on the inside thing that expands it’s innards upon impact… yeah, that wouldn’t have ended well…
Why is that a left hand print?
Because she swatted the not-SWAT with her left hand
And for her it was no sweat? Sweet!
That would not be physically possible, as it still had momentum. Had she stopped it dead, she would have detonated it! Maxima was disarming it whilst it was still moving. What she was able to do though was leach off some of its momentum, by slowing it down, whilst unscrewing components.
At the end of which, she could see what the internal payload was (pellets, of various materials, in three containers, as opposed to gas). Had she tried to stop them, the containers would break,* and the pellets would shoot out, in unpredictable directions, endangering various people around the room. However she could estimate the ongoing path it was travelling in, and its speed. Thus estimating that it would fall short of anybody on its present trajectory.
Likewise the pellets may not have had enough momentum to be dangerous. But scattering harmful contaminants, around the room is not a good alternative to keeping them in their container, and in one location.
Of course Maxima could have travelled with the munition, continuing to slow it down gradually, to avoid rupturing it, until it came to a complete stop. However that would require a 180 degree change in her own momentum. Putting tremendous strain on her own cells!
Whilst each one has a force-field around it, and can help cushion deceleration, such a massive change in velocity could well seriously harm even Maxima. As the contents of the cells would be slammed around, inside the force field, stretching some parts and compacting others (against parts of itself, even if the force field adapted to minimise harm it may inflict itself).
* Rereading the comment, before hitting ‘submit’, I realise that Maxima’s force field would extend to the components, thus protecting them, to a certain degree. But see my comments, in the last couple of paragraphs, to see why it is not 100% risk-free.
Plus, once Maxima let go, any protection from her force field would vanish. So if their internal forces were left in a state where they would be dispersing, but only the force field had been containing them, then they would continue to do that, once it was gone.
Physics has taken severe beatings in several previous encounters in this comic, and expecting the bullet to explode if Max stopped it dead is just another case of insisting the comic follow reality instead of “reality”. Under the “rules” of “physics” in use here, the bullet would not have exploded if she had completely turned it around and thrown it at the attackers [but would have exploded when it got back to them, even at much lower speeds.]
Physics having only a casual nod is a running gag: one of the ads has Sydney saying something along the lines of “Physics? Bitch, I’m a Super!!” while standing Spider-man like on the side of a building
I would expect the ordinance to explode, because it may be set to do so on impact. Which (depending on its mechanism) it could do when coming to a dead stop, be it by hitting its target or being held tight by Maxima!
This is not something Max could determine, until she had disarmed it. Which would require that she only slow it, until it can be examined internally. By which time Maxima saw she could just let the component parts continue on their (now slowed) way.
Besides which Dave tries to remain true to physics, where he can. There is no need to disregard it, when there is a way to actually allow the powers to be used realistically, yet remain within the universal laws.
The kind of thing you are supporting is something which Sydney’s Fly Ball can do, because it clearly messes with fundamental things like gravity (and maybe inertia too). Whereas Maxima has force fields (a.k.a. zero range telekinesis). For her power to remain credible, Dave does need to pay attention to such issues.
Cushioning the body, like really good shock absorbers, is something that flexible force fields can do well. And cellular ones can do that really really well. But there is a finite limit. And doing a 180, at bullet-time speed, is beyond one of those limits! Maxima does not have inertial dampeners!
♫If I could save time in a bottle♫
What about thyme instead?
What about rhyme and reason, in a bottle?
That’s bird shot at most… still though, bird shot is a popular round for hunting rabbits.
But… are you sure it’s wabbit season?
You are correct, it was aimed at a were-rabbit, after all. Although it would be more appropriate to call it ‘doeshot’, as she is a female. Only male rabbits are bucks.
All I know is I don’t earn enough bucks to have any of them shot!
Harry S. Truman: “The buck stops here.”
My reply: “That explains why not enough bucks stop here.”
Shooting that grenade into the Council chamber was dethhhhhpicable!
Is that a bloody handprint on the mannequin? Where did that come from?
An ongoing discussion about it is going on in several pages of comments, pick one and join in
So, i’m sitting here, reading this and the only thing I can think of, is how fricking much i love Sindey’s face in the last panel. It’s so amazing :D
Everyone else seems to be freaked out by it
I found it funny. Some folks declared that they did not recognise her, therefore did not like it, because it made them think it was someone else. But that is actually true-to-life if you catch someone jerking back and displaying an extreme emotion, on their face.
Not sure how that’s any different to a normal pug face :p
Judge for yourself. But, given how hideous they are, we can always use Science! to improve them.
Actually, we could allow nature to improve them by letting them mate with other “breeds”.
I think a Jack Russell / Border Collie would be one of the best crosses. With a Collie mum, of course, given the size difference. Simply because those are the two smartest breeds I know of. And you get the benefit of widening the gene pool nicely.
With a whole litter to choose from, you can pick out the ones which respond to training quickly or demonstrate good problem solving. Making any tie-break by going for smooth-haired Jack Russell looks. ‘Cause they are prettier. :-)
And, looking it up, the combination is popular and is referred to as the Border Jack. I won’t link it though, because the page has a nasty auto-play YouTube type add, that addblocker does not kill.
Apropos of nothing, while looking for pictures for a new avatar today, I found these…
https://dark-horse-adaptations.blogspot.com/2012/08/donkey-wallpapers.html
https://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Donkey-Friends-donkeys-533577_640_480.jpg
You’re welcome.
Well, nuts – let’s see if this link is better…
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H_3-HAIVUZs/UBj4-JyAQxI/AAAAAAAAFJc/vQDNw7yZ8QM/s1600/Donkey+wallpapers+4.jpg
He he. Whilst those are very nice, I love your current avatar. You have such a lovely smile. Not to mention such big handsome ears!
Picked up the book. Yay!
Anyway, been thinking on the contents of that grenade. Thinking about who’s in the area, and would be affected by whatever. These guys presumably know their stuff.
First off, the buckshot. That’ll kill a sizable percentage, and not just the werewolves. Because.. buckshot. Might not be all silver. There could be iron in there, since it’d also be shiny when polished into spheres.
Second vial: Supernaturally vulnerable entities. Holy water, garlic oil, wolfsbane mixture. Maybe some other stuff in there, for edge cases, but this takes out a lot of nasty combatants.
Third vial: Gave this some thought and then it hit me: Nerve gas. A vial that size would have enough to kill anyone in the room with a basic human-ish biology. And the mannequins DON’T NEED TO BREATHE. Would that take out the aliens? The succubi? The big lizardy-things? Very possibly. Would certainly make for a high kill count, as well as trouble for any responders.
Of course, this means that Maxima is going to be very upset whens he finds out she was so careless with the vials…
Maxima had examined it, after disarming. So she knew what it looked like, before releasing it. As per the author’s blog, one was silver buckshot (or birdshot fot those who do not appreciate it is bunnyshot) and another iron. The third was pellets in some form (be it wood, salt, phosphorous, etc, or sabots containing such).
See my comment above for why Maxima had no choice but to let the munition keep travelling on its own path. On top of the points listed there, Max had a pressing engagement with the attackers themselves! But having disarmed it, and seen the contents, any risk was minimal, when compared to the dangers from still armed opponents.
that handprint coulda just been from the ritual that made the mannequin come to life, not from Maxima hitting it
Yes, and that is what the majority of folks think. We won’t be able to tell for sure though, until we get to see another one, without its helmet.
What percentage think it’s the handprint from the struggles of the guards out front?
0% declared to date.
Put me down for that one.
I refuse to.
You are too nice a person to die, no matter how isolated your viewpoint may be!
Getting a betting pool going in this town is dangerous business…
Enjoying the new invotive, looking forward to seeing it coloured :D
Sydney is enjoying her book, Maxi is going “Good choice!”, poor Astra is wondering why the room suddenly went cold :P
WHOOOOT!
I always refresh my screen, after voting, and we had jumped up to 1st place!
*does super-happy doggy dance*
Please keep up the voting folks, whenever you check in on the comic. It would be nice if we could show our appreciation for the new book and voting incentive, by keeping the comic at the number one spot, all the way through the month!
Heh, was expecting you to go with the happy Snoopy dance :(
I just noticed something about that door. Considering that a bomb just blew it open, shouldn’t it be a bit more . . . well, messy? I mean, it looks like a great big square chunk of it was removed when I would have expected the edges of the hole to be more jagged. A big, thick door like that certainly wouldn’t have been reduced to splinters by the kind of relatively small breaching bomb we’re assuming the bad guys are using, but the damage does look a bit too straight and regular to me.
Yeah, it’s almost like the artist doesn’t know how to show jagged splintered wood…
Blasphemy! That is DaveB you are talking about, sir! ☺
Here’s what I’m gonna go with! There were some kind of magical spells built into that door for protection or something. I would say to prevent eavesdropping, but we’ve already seen Sydney listening at the door! The bad guys are apparently well informed and so they would know about this spell and they had enough foresight to apply some kind of counter spell to their munitions to make sure they got through. All of these spells interacting weirdly and canceling each other out is what caused the door to break up into chunks instead of splinters.
Hmmm. This notion seems a bit overcomplicated. Probably stupid, too.
I may have to come over to your side, Guesticus.
Not blasphemy, but blas’adoor.
Would have had an eyeroll smiley, if knew how to do one in this chat system
🙄
Smiley list. Although they do not necessarily display as per the examples there, as some are very different. Not that I have tested many.
It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t draw jagged wood, more like the door was one of the last bits of background I did and I was really ready to be done with the page, so I decided the grenade mostly just blew the individual slats apart and away from the door (conveniently located off panel now)
A couple of Katrina’s lesser known powers:
1) the ability to walk on sunshine; and,
2) the ability to sing with waves.
(Not that I expect many people to get the reference, but it was worth a shot).
Are you kidding? The Eighties is the only decade when I actually paid attention to music!
And don’t it feel good?
NOT to Goths it doesn’t!… when i used to go to the Masquerade Dance at NorWesCon, the SECOND to last song was almost always suitably Gothic, something like: Bela Lugosi’s Dead by Bauhaus… that would get everybody out on the dance floor… THEN to ensure the maximum floor-clearing effect to point out that the dance was shutting down for the night, yep, Walking On Sunshine as the very LAST song of the night… OH, BOY did THAT ever get people off the floor in a frickin’ rush!! It was HILARIOUS to see Goth’s practically knocking each other down in order to be off the dance floor and not be seen dancing to something NOT “Gothic” in nature….
You try backhanding something with your thumb pointing down. Her joints are still human normal. You can do it, but you lose a lot of leverage in it from having your elbow turned that way.
Also, alternate reason for the bloody hand print. Maybe they’re not just puppets for the caster, but carrying around the enslaved consciousness of the caster’s last victim.
First, I drain your soul, and put it in this specially prepared mannequin.
Then I order the mannequin to do my bidding, with all of your competence and cleverness, but none of your vaunted and troublesome free will.
It’s probably the casters. Probably. The caster is probably not that evil.
Probably.
Forgot to let Grrlpowercomic.com through scriptblocker.
I’ll post this again higher up.
Today’s Spinnerette page bears a close resemblance to another fight scene we have seen.
https://www.spinnyverse.com/comics/1478086613-2016-11-02.jpg
I’ll let DaveB’s cadre of lawyers work out if there is any legal action to be taken (or maybe just settle for another cross-universe cameo appearance by one or more GP characters).
Wow, Spinny has let herself go, since I last saw her!
Personally I can’t see any connection beyond a sniper being used against a super. And a particularly wimpy one, despite his looks. Given that he ran away, after merely loosing a hand!
What time did that go up? Checked 10 hours ago and it was still the previous page on the main site
Hoping the sniper wasn’t lying like that when she took the shot! :eek:
That evil super seems to be asthmatic as well
Panel 5 looks like it should be accompanied by a song, with lyrics inspired by the notes.
Maybe sung by The Easybeats? :D
After this episode has wrapped up,would Maxima and Arianna feel that Sydney is more of a liability than an asset?
Politically? Maybe. That would depend on how much they think her behavior is due to extenuating circumstances such as adrenaline rush (finding out vampires, werewolves and werehares are not only real, but meeting actual representatives), lack of sleep, possible problems with medication and/or dosage (she is, after all, probably still taking “ADHD-B-Generics“), etc. and can be amended.
Tactically? Definitely not.
Gah. “ADHD-B-Gone generics”
Actually I meant more personality wise…!
How is she any worse than any other member of Arc-SWAT (including Maxi herself)?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where’s today’s comic… must have it NOW!
=OP
He has it. Try bribing him!
Sorry. That was the significant quote of an old fairy story. The faery in that one, however, had cow tails.
I didn’t realize how obscure it might be until, after posting, I realized it wasn’t even on the first page of Google. LOTS of political stuff, but nothing about a human surviving an evening of dancing with faeries through good manners and discretion.
I did it again. Forgot to exempt Grrlpower.com from scriptblocker.