Grrl Power #488 – Unusual suspects
With a moral compass like that, Ravven should at least be on the suspect list. It does seem like a lot of work to go through to drum up some business though.
When Ingsol says he knows a dozen individuals, he’s thinking of those who are capable, not necessarily motivated. Blood magic is not so rarefied a skill. Animating golems is a skill unto itself, and using blood magic to do it is not unheard of. Making them smart enough to use a variety of weapons is a related but ultimately separate skill. It’s possible they’re looking for a team or dare I say it, a cabal.
By definition, there’s nothing inherently evil about a cabal. You could have a cabal to secretly teach girls to read in countries where it’s not allowed, but man, it’s tough to use that word without evoking a dark and evil conspiracy.
Geeze it’s been so many pages since Ingsol’s showed up I just realized I totally forgot his accent. I’ll have to rejigger some of his dialog when I get a chance.
Edit: Fixed up some of Max’s dialog.
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Is she Nearly Headless then? Like someone else we know?
Nah. “Mostly Headless”
Mostly Headless Mick.
Maybe she’s got a brother? Like Roland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHWmxCoTV3Y
I suspect that before all this is over they are going to need Lawyers, Guns and Money. Gun(n)s are all ready in use, so there is that.
Other important question: How much time has Gregor spent in the UK?
Arianna has the Lawyers and money covered!
As for Gregor “I’d like to see his tailor”. :)
+1
And as always, his hair is perfect.
Hey, don’t forget the American Tourists!
From Ireland.
Seriously, it would be great if her name was ‘Nichol’…
There’s a big difference between Mostly Headless and All Headless
It sounds like the planet Earth. No, wait! That’s “Mostly Harmless.”
Except for the explody parts, and the people that own the explody parts….
I’m thinking the girl with the cool mask in the to-be-villains page: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1189
What evidence do you have that that is a female behind the mask?
Hearts and bunnies and diamonds and stars and long hair and eyelashes, yeah, you are correct, that is totally a guy :rolleyes:
Where are the eyelashes? Her mask covers them.
The eyelashes are on the sides of her eyes, where they are typically shown in cartoons, you can more easily see the right lashes than the left, but they are both there
I think it’s “cleansing” guy. Sounds fitting, he wants to reveal magic creatures to cleanse the earth of their sacreligious…ness.
Hey, bishonen can be villains too, ya know.
And he could be especially fabulous and.. and…
Okay, having problems explaining the bunnies…
::trots off muttering something about who could possibly like bunnies::
Simple, the bunnies are from Bunnies Planet, in the Zones of Adorable
Philanthropists? Highjump champions?
You’re right, it can be a bishonen. But unless proven wrong, I’m going with girl.
Panel 5 of the villains page pretty clearly shows Gunnhildr and Zova and their dialog here:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2346
is quite suspicious. Why stretch for something when there’s a better explanation close at hand?
Yes, it is them, but they are not responsible for this attack
Possibly…..but the villain dialog “new player on the scene” would seem to indicate that they were unaware of Maxima before whereas if they are on the council, they would know about her already.
I suppose they could be vampires not normally affiliated with the council who recently joined in, but you’d think they would do their homework first by investigating the council. If I were plotting against the council, I’d certainly find out who its allies are first and ARC-SWAT would be high on that list.
Knowing that ARCHON is allies with the council is a far cry from knowing that the head of ARC-SWAT will be in the council chambers on the day of your attack.
I’m just excited for the new player on the scene guy.
I don’t think it’ll be him though (I kinda hope it isn’t, as this scenario is less manipulaty than I want.)
It looks more than a bit like them.
If they changed their clothes (easy enough) and their hairdos (also easy enough but drawn characters don’t usually do that a lot unless the story needs them to). We haven’t seen his teeth yet so can’t confirm crazy shark teeth smile but we no this is not how normal vampire teeth are from the other’s that have been shown.
The thing that makes them most likely to be the same is that a blond and someone with swooped back hair and an exaggerated widow’s peak are shown together in both situations. (hair actually looks more like a wilder version of Ingsol’s hair [an intentional misdirect?] rather than Zova who has hair that separates as it sweeps back into two “horns” )
Dave’s drawing is always changing a bit. And the experiments. They look different even just since the council scene began let along that far back. Guess we’ll have to wait to see if he ever reveals having crazy shark teeth.
Oops, Zova didn’t get a “Who’s Who” on the page he both spoke and was named for the first time? Course Krona was also being named and maybe stole the limelight. (so many characters!)
Those are similar hairstyles to Vektor and Opal though, so it’s not as if “spiky-swept back” and “brow-braids” are an uncommon teamup…
Similar, but not quite, Gunnie and Zova match betterer (specially Gunnie)
True.
Also possible he knew we’d be seeing these villains in every shadow since he posted that page and is nudging a few of his new characters in that direction, especially those likely to be seen together, in order to get us all excited and guessing when the real “pair” actually mostly work separately in their “day jobs”.
In which case it could really be anybody including someone from the big brawl that V enjoyed using his aura on to get them out of the shadows they usually enjoy masterminding from. Seems to suit V’s sense of humor. Wouldn’t surprise me if V becomes a source of information on one of those two then.
Or the Church Dude, using what remains of the mostly headless?
Yes, but which part though? The part they cut off? Or the rest of her?
Maybe they got both pieces & had to string wiring between the pieces…Signals passing through computer-based analyzing to make sure that the parts are still working in conjunction. At least, as long as they’re not Luddites…
The answer is right there in panel three behind Max’s head. The villains are the Cinnabon faction. They want the council out of the way of their plan for world conquest. They found out the monster community are immune to the mind control chemicals they are distributing via their world wide network of pastry shops.
Hmm.. being mind controlled..
Or delicious cinnamonny heaven…
So all I have to do is get some zoanthrope blood in me and I can eat all cinnamon I want? What could possibly go wrong? *recalls Stun’s backstory*
I think its the guy with the yellow eyes who said “The Cleansing is at hand.”
Yup, the Yellow-eyed Demon, better call Sam & Dean (and their mother, she would probably like to have a day or three in private to ‘chat’ about old times)
it was the “Preacher” that was saying “The Cleansing is at hand!”
Yes, and JGREY pointed out he has yellow eyes (do you not watch “Supernatural” to have gotten the reference? :( )
Nope, looked too much like “Redneck Buffy” for my taste
More like “Scooby Doo with guns”, plus, Buffy never made friends with the King of Hell, or reunited God with his Sister, she simply boned a pair of vamps
Gotta say it’s darker and better than Buffy. And the fun is more sarcastic like the episode where Sam and Dean cross over to the world where they are just a TV show. lol
Or the prophet that writes their story in their world ends up being God in disguise.
And the fact that most Angels are dicks and assholes.
You should watch a few shows it surprisingly good. But I liked Firefly so take that into account.
Yups, and how can you pass by the King of Hell (not Lucy, he’s now body jumping in a tantrum because his Dad abandoned him, again, to go tour the universe with his Aunt) who gets so exasperated by Sam & Dean he calls them “Squirrel and Moose” :D (still not sure which one is which, largely because keep forgetting which one is Sam and which one Dean, but believe Dean is the older one and Sammy is ‘Moose’, possibly because he’s the ‘big and dumb’ one :P)
Except Sam is arguably smarter and actually went to college (pre-law I believe) and Dean is the more dangerous one who is more mechanically inclined. He also is somewhat scared of them as he has tried to kill them numerous times only to come up short. I mean they managed to gank a Hell-Knight. One that sent Crowley skiddering into hiding like a cockroach.
Was just meaning the stereotypical look
Of course Crowley if scared of them, he’s not even a real demon (unless his mummy scarest liked to dabble in more than spells)
I feel the priest is a more likely culprit. Vehemence is the panel one villain and he gets a story arc first, the most direct interpretation of the foreshadowing is that the villains will come one at a time in the order they appeared on that major villains page.
For other evidence, there are plenty of bibel verses that claim that the arrival of ‘false prophets’ signal the end of themselves and their people (The best verse I could find with a quick google would be 2 Peter 2:1). Max’s big boom could be seen as an attempt to promote the idolatry of supers, and what self-respecting zealot would bother with details like the difference between superhumans and supernatural beings? None.
So I’d say Max’s big debut prompted our priest villain to move on cleasing the world of filth, superhuman and supernatural. And it’s been established that one of the best ways to start that is to take down the veil and let the norms panic.
Everybody is assuming that it’s part of the rogues gallery, but Vehemence threw his little surprise together on the spur of the moment. The rest are running on good old fashioned evil plans. I think we’ll find out it’s somebody we don’t know about…yet…
I am pretty sure t’s the priestly looking guy with yellow eyes.
is mostly more then nearly? i would think not right? i mean mostly is a decent amount over half, but nearly must be really getting there right?
I adore Halo’s tongue-tip expression. :)
Max’s dialogue seems a little off in panel 3. “At least one of weapon they are…”
Also, aah, creepy eye harpy is creepy. Has her job ever been stated in comic?
Other than being a sellsword *cough*traitor*cough* who just ‘happened’ to get the report after the fight ended, nope
yea, at least 95% chance her group is behind the attacks, they stand to gain the most from it supposedly. then again who knows? maybe the reason they’re attempting to sabotage the veil is because someone paid them…
Nah.
Mercenaries aren’t evil. They are just neutral and fight for whoever pays them the most. And they also tend to be loyal for as long as the money keeps flowing.
She’s not behind it. She’s just seeing dolla dolla signs
Talking about mercenaries, and remembering the comments to the previous post about the terms ‘sellsword’ and ‘blankshield’: Of course, that’s also where the term ‘freelance’ originated…
Ooo! I forgot about that!
+2!
But they aren’t really free – they insist on being paid. And they aren’t big on extending credit.
That’s what the lance is for :P
“Pay me, or you get to ride the pointy end!”
That’s “free” as in not oath-bound to a specific master.
Who said anything about them being ‘evil’?
Mercenaries tho, hey, we just go where’s a mix of money and trouble.
Most mercenaries aren’t traitors. Mercenaries stop getting work if they switch sides before their contract is completed after all.
I caught that bit of dialogue too. It would work better if is reads, (by adding a word) “at least one of the weapons,” or maybe (to save some space in the dialogue balloon) “at least one weapon”
Fixed!
Sorry, Sidney, for all of the cool supernatural stuff you get to encounter, there’s going to be stuff that’s icky by comparison.
Some of the things will be well beyond icky…
We have already seen ‘sticky’ (thank you Brooke, for that caramelized bunk-moment ;) )
I don’t know whether Dave is giving us an obvious suspect in Ravven, or he’s bluffing us by making us think “too obvious”, or he’s double-bluffing us by making us think Ravven can’t be because she’s “too obvious”, when she really is, or he’s triple-bluffing us by…
…But that way lies madness.
We should be good unless there is iocane powder involved. Or for that matter a Sicilian.
perhaps we should sniff the remains of the attack mannequins…
But iocane is odourless.
I’m sure it would work!
I’d stake my life on it!
IIRC at one point in history there was some mercenary bands operating out of Sicily that were fairly well regarded.
They were called condottieri. Literally translated, “contractor”; in this case, military contractors. The company commanders were called condottiere (and the contract itself was the condotta). They were different from previous mercenary groups because they had a code of military justice that imposed discipline and an equal division of the contract’s income.
Most condottiere were educated men acquainted with military science, and preferred to fight by outmaneuvering the opponent and fighting his ability to wage war, rather than risk uncertain fortune (e.g. capture or death) in battlefield combat.
The condottiere selected the soldiers to enlist; when the contract expired, the company entered a wait period, to give the contracting city-state time to consider its renewal. If the contract expired definitively, the company could not declare war against the contracting city-state for two years. This military–business custom was respected because professional reputation (business credibility) was everything to the condottieri; a deceived employer was a reputation ruined.
It’s pretty easy to see why they were well-regarded.
Madness? Singing “Our House”?
“My Girl” is more likely, if she’s feeling slighted.
Inconceivable!
Madness? Maybe. But maybe that is just what Dave wants us to think!
Oh, we’re all mad, here.
Not mad at all, Not even angry. Maybe a little miffed, but that’s it.
Nice LC reference.
NO! THAT WAY LIES SPARTA!
But this ISN’T Sparta, this is Grrl Power.
sorry, the mention of madness triggered my meme reply
Madness is restricted to Sparta…There’s also Arkham Asylum, for one example.
;)
“isn’t” restricted, not “is” restricted…Dammit…
Sparta is that way *points at the suspiciously well-walled pit*
Small voice comes out of pit “Could someone throw me a rope? All these bodies cushioned my fall and it’s only 10 feet deep now!”.
So, does that mean it’s a creature like the Face Of Boe? Where cutting of the head wouldn’t do anything. Because it is only head.
Best possible defense against vorpal weaponry.
But also damn inconvenient, not having hands to moisturize his/her skin.
Would a/the Morrigan count as a Valkyrie? She chooses the slain, sort of …
Next to the Invisibles banner (on the other side from the Djinn banner) is that a sextant symbol? Sorry but I haven’t seen a comprehensive list of banners in the comments yet.
In the ‘Iron Druid’ books, by modern times she was a friend of the valkyries.
The Morrigan seems like just the Irish Valkyries except it’s only one creature not a host of them.
Not sure if the Valkyries drank blood from the skulls of the slain.
Yeah, they preferred to do that from the living (or was that just Gunnie?)
Just Gunnie, the rest prefered porkchops from Odin’s All Night Diner
Seems you also forgot how to do his face.
The shadows without shadow make him look kinda…plasticy.
Yeah, DaveB needs to jigger his face as well
Dave said he is on holiday this week. He may have done his artwork for this issue from a different computer that does not have all his customized settings.
The nerve of this guy. Taking time off for family and stuff instead of giving us free comics!
And to all the loyal readers of this comic out there I wish you all a happy new year.
let’s call this one the Year of the Grrl, we can all wear our orb halos and swear in the new year.
Lots and lots of swearing.
Rise Up Swearing!™
We can even hold a contest to see who can swear most like Sydney!
My money is on the Koala…
Who? You mean Speedy? He can really get it going when he wants to.
Love the series, wonderful story… But this whole chapter I just stared at that hideous single shoulder thing the vampire is wearing :(
You must have hated “Romeo and Juliet”, or “The Three Mouseketeers”, the single shoulder cape was very fashionable
It looks a bit like a pelisse. A short jacket normally worn draped over the left shoulder to help ward off sabre cuts. If so, it should have fur trim and lots of buttons.
The cutt off most of his head?
So he was in two minds about it, so they helped him out?
To all expectations, that should have been a “head job” to end all head jobs…
I think I know where this is headed
I don’t want to sound two-faced, but my head’s kind of divided with this one.
I guess he has a split personality
maybe the headsman gave them a discount. a double-header, if you will.
He cut a deal. Two for one.
He was sleepy and thought he was asking for a little off the top from his barber.
Bad thing to ask for from the headsman.
He realized his mistake too late, and afterwards, he was beside himself.
Her. The person with the mostly cut of head is female. Read Ingsol’s speach bubble again
As an anatomically-defined gender of “male,” I’m of two heads about everything.
If that person’s name happens to be Keyser Söze…
Looks like we’ve got an accomplice here.
Dave! I think you should leave the dialogue as-is. It’s funnier if Ingsol was actually faking an accent the entire time just to meet expectations, and then Sydney calls him on it. It’s also more logical — Ingsol is a VERY old vampire; being able to match the accent of the people you’re around would act as camoflage and hide a vampire better.
And in times of stress, it would make sense to revert to your regular accent.
But there is 1 problem. There’s no way he originally has an American-english accent, because that didn’t exist 700 years ago.
It does actually make for an interesting scenario. You know how adults struggle to keep up with the language of the kids these days? Language evolves, and the language of the kids these days will turn into regular language of adults tomorrow.
Vampires would be permanently stuck annoyed by the language of the kids these days, struggling to keep up.
Tangential fun fact: the American accent similar to the historic British accent. The modern British accent “has drastically changed in the past two centuries, while the typical American accent has changed only subtly.”
https://www.livescience.com/33652-americans-brits-accents.html
Except that that link tends to follow the Hollywood fallacy of assuming all Brits are Londoners, speaking either Received Pronunciation (the actual name for what people call ‘The Queen’s English’) or Cockney, when the accent that most Brits will interact with is Estuary – a melting pot accent, which originated in the forces during the first and second world wars.
My own West Country accent, for example, is the one people either call ‘farmer’ or ‘pirate’, and the Rs are very pronounced.
Not to mention there are Many regional dialects in America. Put a New Englander in a room with say a Bayou dweller and neither will understand the other. They even use different words. Take it from a transplanted Yankee.
there’s variances even within a “regional” dialect
All the way down to neighborhood variations. I was amazed at the differences in cities like Boston, London, and NYC….
Yeah, an expertly trained & experienced speech analyst can pin down where you have last lived (for at least 5 years) to less than a 10-mile radius. Sub-dialects & accents can get that specific.
And once the conversation goes on for long enough that you start to relax, they can identify where you first lived, to a similar degree of accuracy, too.
Don’t be conflating accent and dialect.
Accent is all about how words are pronounced: potato, potahto.
Dialect is more about which words and colloquialisms are used: so far, thus far.
Pretty much all countries have a big variety of regional accents even small ones.
I’m not English but even I raise an eyebrow over how many Americans seem to assume England have only one accent and it’s often the posh and fancy sounding one, not one from slums in north east England.
– for example, or any of the many others.*
https://www.darcomic.com/2009/11/24/mattaccent/
I’m with you. Having a flunky remind him or having Sydney call him on it would be funnier.
“Master.. your accent is slipping…”
“Shouldn’t that be wessels?” “What?” “You mean Vhat?” “What?”
I know what Ingsol is going through. I also hate when ppl get my favourite suit or jacket dirty.
Or, I’m just guessing, sit in your spot. ;)
Well, I don’t have a favourite spot in the sofa but I don’t like when ppl sit in my computer chair.
I can understand that, those cushions absorb sweat and smell more than a couch (you can wash the cushion covers on a couch usually) so it feels and smells like your territory. It’s actually a normal reaction just usually subconscious.
This is why we have Febreze™…
Ingsol, you got some schmutz…
*licks handkerchief, rubs at Ingsol’s cloak*
At lest it’s not a Schmuck, unless he’s been feeding during the fighting
How big is this head Ingsol speaks of?!?!?
I think it could be presumed, “not very big…anymore”
the size of a head. head-sized. possibly that of the queen of hearts.
The Red Queen?
Only half as big as it used to be…
Well technically, if “most” of her head was cut off, then the remainder would be less than half, wouldn’t it?
;)
the blade went into the skull at the approximate level of the teeth
That leaves the brainstem. Chickens can still survive with just that.
well that would satisfy the “most of the head” remark.
It really feels like Ingsol should have another ear visible in the third panel, based on how his head is turned.
He only has one ear, it keeps switching sides so people aren’t freaked out by it
“Didn’t that hump used to be over…Never mind.”
~Gene Wilder, as Dr. Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein
Was actually thinking how Mickey Mouse’ ears were always in the same position, no matter which way his head was facing
He’s a vampire, not a half elf.. :D
You mean like Syzygy Darklock’s ear from The Epic comic series Dreastar?
Jim Starlin is awesome.
That didn’t mention anything about him losing an ear
During the course of the series, the silvery orb thingy covering his ear switched sides fairly often. :D
I was very happy that I noticed it the first time it switched and turned out to be correct that I had not imagined it.
Turns out Syzygy did. :D
Oh, and yeah, they didn’t mention the ear in Wikipedia. Odd, that.
They didn’t mention that he played guitar, neither…
most of her head? as in more than one?
As in, they didn’t cut all of it off
Did you see the “Doctor Who” Christmas special? Kinda like that
Dave, Ravven is missing a who’s who.
Now there’s a mixed look.
On the one hand, she put her hand on my shoulder.
On the other hand, she put her hand on my shoulder.
On the gripping hand… there’s literally no way I can bite her, really.
The Gripping hand? I see none of Niven’s aliens here.
Yet…
With their breeding imperative even 1 equals a multitude in a short time.
+1
You know a certain new character could hack reality to allow Sydney to figure out what her unknown balls do…you know have them project their functions in a holographic chart ala “Level Up” chart?
Do this for each ball and you have comparisons you can make and find similarities…piece together a Rosetta Stone sort of.
Then again giving Sydney this knowledge might break certain rules of reality too… or let sydney break reality accidentally with too much power in her hands.
So she can do it? Question is, should she? And definitely someplace no one else can spy upon her, halo and the powers that be that Must be there and have need to know.
Also want to see Krona try to give a certain PR agent an enhanced conscious. :p Or how Krona + Sydney would make the endless classes more fun.
“Okay, now we will start the powerpoint and delineate each and every point we’ve discussed and show you why you must not do these things. It shouldn’t take more than an hour, hour an a half. Then we will have a small break and do a summary.”
Krona looks at Sydney, who looks back, both their stomachs rumble from hunger and both look bored to tears.
“Okay first point…” (Krona clickity clickity tap tap) “…and that’s the class. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
Arianna looks briefly confused, blinks and suspects something but cant prove it. Her watch says the required time has passed and she believes it too.
Krona “Soooo Lutwaffles?”
Sydney “Can you make my food hotter than they’d serve?”
Krona “Suuurrreee, but why?”
Sydney “I crave danger…”
Krona “Well we have a few free hours, why not? Shopping after?”
Sydney “I haven’t had a chance to spend any of my first paycheck yet…”
Krona “you’re treat? You owe me for this class.”
Sydney “But did we really learn anything?”
Krona “Give me a sec… and yes, yes we did. You may have weird dreams tonight, but the lesson’s in there” Taps Sydney’s head…
Sydney “You’re dangerous. I like that…can you add in Wolverine in place of Arianna? Shirtless and in really tight pants?”
Krona “Sure, why not. Why?”
Sydney “Tell you over lunch.”
Arianna “Why is my underwear riding up so much?”
Krona “OKayy Time to go!”
No, that sounds like the plot of one of those truly awful 70’s porn movies
I think Krona can’t target the balls, other did try but the balls apear to not be there.
Ah. And here I believe we’ve stumbled upon the limit of Krona’s power. Since it’s described as “hacking” reality, it stands to reason she needs to be able to both read and understand a subjects “code” in order to manipulate it. In any kind of predictable way, anyway.
So switching a grenade from “armed” to “disarmed”, relatively simple. The human mind, infinitely complex. Perhaps with study she could figure out some of the basic functions, but that study would most likely result in irreversibly damaging the “code” of several individuals, especially since I don’t think Krona has an “Undo” key.
Sydney’s orbs, likewise, are unique and complicated. Studying their code should be somewhat safer, but what happens if a change unexpectedly bypasses the directory that runs containment for whatever energy the PPO generates? That’s if Krona can see their code at all, so far the orbs have been quite impenetrable to any attempt to scan or analyze them.
I have a feeling trying to hack the orbs would lead to a blue screen flashing “FATAL ERROR!”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
ON the last Panel, Sydney looks like she had just tasted butt…
…or the stuff that comes out of it.
Gault?
Who is John Gault?
hehehe
I’m reading that right now. :O
The ‘moral’ of the story, or at least the only one I was able to find, was that it’s ok for millionaires to cheat on their spouses.
Nowadays, just having an appropriately-phrased prenuptial agreement can work for anybody…
I seen Dabbler wasn’t able to hose Maxima off after all . . .
Yet….
And now Ingsol needs laundry service! This might be a golden opportunity for Dabbler to get them both out of their clothes for a threesome! ☺
I wonder if he knows a good 24 hour dry-cleaner…
Sydney: “This person who had their head chopped – where was she last seen?”
Ingsol: “New England. If I remember correctly, we left the body behind a stable in the little town of Sleepy Hollow.”
that would make for a much more intriguing story. the headless horsewoman was just looking for a date, Ichabod.
Even the dead get thirsty for that hot Crane lovin’
But no love for Frasier
One issue with Raven and her eyes, or lack thereof. Having no depth perception can be a major problem with someone who flies for a living. It would make as much sense for a woman with only one eye to be the captain of a spaceship. Oh, right. Never mind.
There are ways to establish depth perception, even with only one good eye. If you only have one eye, you only get one image unless you move your head slightly from side to side so that you get a couple of different images from your one eye for your mind to compare (this is called parallax). This allows you to mimic with one eye what you would see with two eyes, and thus alleviate the close-in depth perception problem.
Where this simple trick does not work is with an activity which is fast-paced, such as sports. You will simply not have enough time to move your head around and get different images if, for instance, you have a tennis ball coming at you at 90 mph. Some sports will not be affected at all by one-eyedness. These will include jogging, swimming, water-skiing, snow-skiing, snowboarding, surfing, etc. Some sports, such as tennis, might be significantly affected. Other sports may or may not be affected, depending on the position you play. For instance, I doubt that one-eyedness would make much of a difference if you play the pitcher in baseball, if you play in the post position in basketball, or if you play on the offensive line in football.
Once your brain retrains itself to deal with the missing eye, even things like parking are not affected by the lack of depth perception. The lack of peripheral vision on that one side, yes, but not by depth perception.
TL;DR: Unless she flies at supersonic speeds, I doubt missing an eye will have much effect on Ravven’s ability to fly.
My right eye is what they call a ‘lazy eye’, meaning that it can’t change its focal distance by much, which hinders my distance vision… but its difference from my left eye means that if I place two supposedly-identical documents side-by-side then I can scan both of them simultaneously and easily spot any differences.
There are 18 cue categories for distance/depth but only 3 need binocular vision.
Captain is a command position, rather it is the pilot or crew manning sensors for whom such is critical. Horatio Nelson was blind, in one eye, for half his career as a captain, which did not hinder his ability to outfight captains and rivals with the usual compliment of eyes. And found the ability to ‘turn a blind eye’ to be a positive advantage, once he rose to the rank of admiral.
*keeps paw covering cybernetic eye with sarcasm sensor*
I really want to know why these yahoos think blowing up their shields of anonymity and killing their own kind in the process is a bright idea. Sure, there may be a glory hound or two in the mix, but it boggles the mind how they think this is in their long-term best intrests.
They’ve supposedly been around for thousands of years, yet haven’t noticed how paranoid, fanatical, racist, panicky, and outright stupid humanity as a whole can be?
Ingosol is right, the Veil blows up suddenly, and without warning, and there will be flash-mobs with torches, pitchforks, and all sorts of weaponry going after anything even remotely super-natural, and even should things settle down, there will always be hate organized hate groups, equivalent to the KKK or the Neo-nazi party plotting and scheming to wipe them out.
The answer to those concerns is that the persons behind the attack are not associated with the council. They could be a group of xenophobic hew-mons who found out about the existence of cryptids and aliens on Earth. They want to expose them in order to capture or drive out the non-humans from society.
(This might be a good time to invest in the torch and pitchfork industries)
invest, nothing. Come one, come all! The first ever torch-in-a-pitchfork! Only 10 dozen left! Get yours before they’re sold out!!
Well, it has been established that the Council enforces peace among member races that would otherwise be eternal nemeses, such as Angels and Demons, through strength of arms. So it stands to reason that there’s someone(did I do that right?) that sees the Council as an obstacle preventing them from destroying their hated enemies once and for all. And if it takes mass hysteria and public witch hunts(both literal and metaphorical) to remove that obstacle, at least we’ll be able to get back to removing the blight of the things opposite us at long last.
Well typed viewpoint, and it makes sense as a motive
Even sellsword Ravven basically admitted to that
“After the revolution things will be different. Not better, just different”…
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
Okay, it’s possible that Ravven might be an angel, but artists usually show them with white wings, carrying around harps, and not being mercenaries. I’m gonna guess that she’s a Hell’s Angel, then. We should be able to find out if I’m right in fairly short order.
Somebody run and check her locker for leather jackets and her parking spot for motorcycles!
We don’t know if she’s an angel or a demon. We’re just assuming she is, because she has feathered wings. She could be something else entirely. Also, demons are just fallen angels (which would maybe explain the wing color), but traditionally the wings of a demon are depicted as being UPSIDE-DOWN, as a reminder of their fall from grace, and hers aren’t.
And, as you pointed out, angels are generally not known to be mercenaries. I tend to agree that she’s something else.
Not all demons are fallen angels
Demon wings tended to be a bit more ‘leathery’ than ‘feathery’
half-angel/half-devil ?
How about a harpy?
Winged people in comics seem to rarely be angels/seraphs and when they do they are usually not the typical sort of some reason.
But there are lots of winged beings in mythology and she can be any.
Harpy, Siren (Although if she was either of those she’d probably be more bird-y), some sort of fairy or nymph, or just a made up one.
We could get a clue if they will say her name…
I feel like the cleansing is at hand…
Is it just me, or is Maxima looking… fairly Asian in the last few pages? I think it’s because the lines on her face are being smoothed out.
So…. did Mrs Mostly Headless get better?
Would she have needed help to get better? It’s probably fair to assume that if she was using her brain, removing most of her head would have probably removed most or all of her ability to think/remember.
Depends on how much ‘most of her head’ they removed: if they removed from the jaw up, the brain would still be mostly intact
https://comicvine.gamespot.com/the-absence/4005-74568/
Thought at first she had a crescent-shaped scar, not a whole hole through her head-case
The first one I’d suspect of this attack is that sellsword, given her aplomb and sudden offer of “protection”. It reminds me of a movie in which a man selling home security kicks in the door of a house that utilizes his company’s alarms. The alarm goes off and he and his latest recruit go running. As he explains, the “robbery” looks as if it were aborted because of the alarm. The owner is grateful and all the unprotected neighbors suddenly decide it’s a good idea to buy his home security for their homes. I’d watch out for her group, whatever they are.
Or she’s just a consummate professional and an opportunist. In which case, her offer is quite charitable considering she’s predicting a spike in business should the Veil fall…
What!?! Secretly teaching girls to read in a country where it’s not allowed??? You monster! You criminal! You should be ashamed of your evil acts!
They need to start somewhere, the men in those countries can’t read either and follow whatever stupid ‘laws’ they have been fed up the arse
Yeah, they are all the same, so different from us.
What if you only chop of most of a hydra head? How many will grow back?
1.7 heads
Decapitation is never exactly final; knowing mythology, it could be a very active head on a plate/in a jar/gilded and framed…
Ravven’s wings are starting to bother me and so I need one of you to please explain to me how I’m wrong ☺. Most humanoids I’ve seen with wings in TV, movies, and comic books have them coming out of where we mortals have shoulder blades. Is it just me, or does it look like they are attached to Ravven a little lower than that? DaveB can put them anywhere he likes, obviously, but it looks a little odd to me.
It’s a manga / anime thing – for some reason, wings in either medium tend to be in odd places (lower back, head, shoulders proper rather than on either side of the spine).
You’re not alone in thinking it looks off and a bit weird. It’s taken me years of training to tamp down the unrest it evokes from me.
Right off the bat, as others commented last page, Ravven’s wings have atypical bones: https://takethemoment.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/armbones-good-.jpg
Anyway, winged persons have them mostly comming off the shoulder blades, and to me that seems to be Ravven’s case as well. The unusual look I think is due she have them not actually folded. She is keeping the “elbows” away the body, and the “wrist” high up, that makes the wings0 “shoulders” to look as they were lower.
https://www.terrain.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/swan-wings1.jpg
My opinion :)
I don’t know. She has mechanical looking wing bones that can be seen through the “flesh” and feathers of her wings when she’s in flight (along with a shimmering/sparkling effect in the area around them) along with a odd possibly also mechanical looking eye (or maybe both things are magical “constructs” supporting her as the mannekiller creator. )
So the way they link to her may be abnormal cause they might be fake or maybe they aren’t even “attached” to her in the flesh and bone sense at all. Instead attached to some ultra thin and form hugging armor thing she’s wearing under that get up. I don’t think they are a force projection cause you’d think she’d let them go when she is at rest. (unless she’s hiding the fact they are force projections)
Speaking as a zoologist (in theory, anyway), operating them off of the shoulder-blades wouldn’t work very well for beings that have arms as well because the two sets of muscles being used for those two pairs of limbs would get in each other’s way: Having an additional set of bones as an anchoring point for those muscles, attached further down the spine, probably would be better in that respect.
Whilst it makes little difference if flying in a vertical position, as we saw when Ravven descended, in horizontal flight the centre of balance would be totally wrong if the wings were articulated at shoulder height.
Clearly high speed flight would be impractical, for a humanoid, if having the drag of exposing the full front of the body, by flying in an upright position. So I agree that having the wings at the natural centre of gravity is the only sensible place, unless the beings powers allow aesthetics to take precedence over practicality.
Mind you I find Ravven’s looks to be fine like this.
About the only two humanoids can think of right now who flew in a vertical fashion, were Doc Doom and Magneto, in Maggie’s case it was simply because he had his ‘flight bubble’ and he thought it looked ‘cool’
Depending on how fast the wings went, they could lie ‘horizontally’ like Supperman
Trouble is, say with Angel, from the X-Men, if he is flying horizontally, the entire weight of his torso and legs (i.e. most of his body weight) is on one side of his wings, offset by only his head, on the other side. Which means he would have to be exerting massive amounts of energy to try and keep his body in that position. Exactly the same as you see an Olympic gymnast expending when on the rings and keeping their body held in a horizontal position.
We know that a humanoid, with wings the size Raaven’s or Angel’s, cannot fly, using human muscle power alone, so either they have super-human strength or super-powered assistance to their propulsion. If they have the boosted strength version, to achieve muscle-powered flight, Angel will have to divert a lot more of his energy into horizontal flight than Raaven would do.
Further, Angel would also need to do the same with super-endurance, in order to maintain that posture, for anything other than very brief flights. Given that we can see how very exhausting holding that pose is, even for the finest gymnasts in the world!
It has been stated canonically that Angel has hollow bones, and he can (or use to) move his wings fast enough he could ‘humming-bird’ in place, but that was before he got promoted to Arch-Angel
Most times he is in that position is when he is in motion, other times he is hovering vertically
Hollow bones would help, from the point of view of making human-sized flight, with such small wings, less impossible. Super speed with the wings would certainly provide a good mechanism to explain the rest of the discrepancy (with the usual super-universe caveats).
However that only serves to make the problem even worse, as humming-bird flight is the most energy intensive version that birds have. They need to spend most of their time in feeding on rich fuel sources, in order to maintain such flight. Plus push the limits of what is possible, in aerodynamic flight, in order to achieve the performance they do.
Throw in an unaerodynamic humanoid body, and the massive discrepancy caused by increasing the mass of the flyer, but failing to increase the density of the air accordingly, and it becomes more than just an energy issue (which we can wave away, as many super-powers clearly draw in more power, by some means). Angel would need to flap his wings faster than a hummingbird to compensate. A lot faster.
This means he would stress and strain his tendons, muscles and bones beyond their structural limits. Hummingbirds push their form to the limits on these things, in their optimised bodies. But there are limits to what flesh and bone can withstand. Worsened with human body-mass (the size discrepancy counting hugely here) combined with hollow bones.
But we can just grant him super-toughness, to allow his body to cope. It does add to the list of required secondary super powers Angel has though.
It is worth noting that being in motion does not negate the need to expend energy, to keep an unbalanced object in an ‘unnatural’ position. Angel is still being held up by his wings, so even though his legs would drag behind him,* he still has gravity acting upon them, so would need to use muscle power to hold his body horizontally (rather than let it hang at, say, a 45 degree angle from the vertical).
But I do concede that it would take less energy (for that aspect, but not overall) when compared to being stationary.
* Both in resiting being moved, as per Newton, and due to wind-resistance.
Randomly started re-reading this. haven’t gotten back to the arc introductions so he’s probably there. but I wont’ remember this question by that time.
So #4. which is set in the future. has max, syd and anvil.
that fellow in the background? Is he one of the general guys?
cause uponre-read I went “is that venom?” i doubt it.
but thought i’d just write a random thought before i lost it
No, that is Stalwart, you can tell by the dapper suit
Technically, #4 is set in the ‘present’, these are flashbacks
So is this Ingsol’s way of confirming that a Sigil was kept here? It makes sense and many of us have said it probably was but it hasn’t really been confirmed till now. Maybe.
Is the only door to it through the council chamber? Otherwise I would assume the Mannekillers would just go around…
Basically, if it is there then we might get a chance to see the actual thing soon right?
Yes, it probably is.
Would make sense to hold council meetings near the Sigil. They are presumably well guarded, and central.
As for the only door: Sydney and Co came through the back door, while most council members came through the back door.
I’m assuming one of those was meant to be “front door” instead.
Maybe that’s why Ingsol has let so much lesser magical clutter gather in his dwelling. Makes it a bit harder for the less discerning to find the Sigil’s energy?
I knew it! See Maxima is talking dirty to Ingsol. ;-)
But is it canon? or just an author’s dream.
Yes.
Always saddened me back in the day when they tried to pass off cymbals as cannon :(
it was only to drum up business
Lacking the finances to use real cannons, they still needed some kind of sound for the cymbal-ism.
Cutting *most* of a head off is actually a pretty good idea. I’ve heard of plenty of cases where removing the head entirely is only a mild inconvenience – the head is intact, and be reattached or implanted into a cyborg chassis.
But monsters that get back up after their cranium has been bisected with an axe? Not so common.
Can recall watching an autopsy show (a show about a real life coroner and some of her cases), and one of the cases was about a guy who blew his brains out, twice: apparently, he put the rifle (or shotgun) in his mouth and pulled the trigger, brains and skull went flying, but he was still alive,so he shot himself for a second and final time, they found him on or near his bed, but there was brain bits and bloody fingerprints on the bathroom basin so they figured after the first attempt he got up and went and had a look in the mirror
Not only can not begin to imagine what that must have looked like, to see a fair piece of your head missing, but to have attempted that in the first place (actually, that is one reason why ‘suicide by gun’ is not an option for me, apart from not knowing how to get a gun in the first place, afraid that that would happen to me and be found before being able to finish of the job)
There was also the case of an elderly man found, with a fatal head-wound, in NYC’s Central Park: after some confusion, it was discovered that he’d actually shot himself in a nearby hotel and then walked — presumably ‘on auto-pilot’ — to the park bench on which his body was discovered.
sounds more plausible than the guy who supposedly committed suicide by shooting himself 5 times in the chest with a bolt action rifle.
Oh sure, there are documented cases of people surviving remarkable head injuries, and dying unexpectedly slowly of even worse. But for whatever reason, it’s not so common in fiction, so I’d be happier knowing the monster’s head had been violently dismantled rather than cleanly detached.
Mission Report: Codename Ravven
By Lt. Col. M. Leander
Once upon a Council meeting, while some complained about the seating
My recruit made comments most unwelcome and I sent her out the door.
Then there came an urgent warning of some forces bent on storming,
storming through our chamber door.
Presently there came a crashing, of armed men and wood doors smashing.
And inward strode a man with a raised weapon while the flames began to roar.
A launched grenade was caught and disassembled, and my sure hands never trembled.
Then I tossed it on the floor.
Others quickly joined the game, to thwart the plans of those who came
to slay the gathered members of our meeting, in an act of total war.
and with foes quickly dwindling, we reduced them all to kindling
and piled their broken pieces in heap near the smashed door.
Then the foes before our eyes from the pile began to rise
which my recruit in no uncertain terms was quick to underscore.
The head mage began his scries to check for weakness, but surprise!
It was a trap and with a glow soon his mana was no more.
Then in a swirling mist of motion leading up to an explosion
the mannequin began to glow as mentioned heretofore.
I sped away with the fell device and thought it would be very nice
that if it were to detonate to get it out of doors.
It was much later that I found with but a single mighty bound
sprang a beast who might just be a creature from folklore.
But for her efforts she was laid low from a most unwelcome blow
by the deadly poison that the golem had in store.
The next to fight was clad in leather and with one swipe revealed a treasure
A gleaming shard of metal from which its head she tore.
With a manner most lackadaisical, but to Sydney most amazical
she tossed the shard to a compatriot to research with her lore.
Then rang out shots from a rifle, pulled out as if a party trifle
from a mystic hard bound book like a floating hardware store.
A pair of reticent undead who questioned their status if they fled
was decided when with sword in hand up stepped the maiden named for war.
While the grrls tried to come up with some ideas to fight a boss with arms like Shiva’s
I arrived to take it down with my Deus ex Machina encore.
Krona changed her hair color with her floating screen and I pondered if I might ever wind up clean,
while Gunnhildr tried in vain to adjust the underwear she wore.
And then arrived a messenger with news of damaged sigils and warned us to not decrease our vigils
in hoping to prevent the spread of internecine war.
We pondered who would benefit from wholesale panic spreading, and whether that person can be stopped with only a beheading.
And that’s the end of my report; there isn’t anymore.
+100 !
At least…
O.B Juan wins the internet today.
The Dwarf Approves!
Now you just need to get Q to read it aloud.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIckeYVuMC0
Arrgh. NO. John DeLancie is fine in ST:TNG, but listening to him narrate an entire book should be a violation of the Geneva Convention. Seriously, he’s a nice guy, but something about his voice is like listening to nails on a chalkboard.
*dew claws up*
Man! You did “The Halo before Christmas” and now this. :D You have quite the talent in adaptive poetry.