Grrl Power #525 – Tropelock
It only took 2 days for Harem to get Sydney’s Loony Tunes reference. Luckily Sydney seems to have locked up for a moment, so maybe they’ll reach parity at some point.
For Heatwave, absorbing heat is fine, as long as it’s (her words) “hot.” But getting things below room temperature is where it starts getting difficult and unpleasant. She “meat lockered” a room once, but she was grumpy afterwards and just wanted to go sit in a hot tub “for like, forever.” You might think that absorbing heat would be fine, like it would make her warmer or charge her up, but if you’re FartMan, the last thing you want to do is suck in a bunch of someone else’s farts.
Given the depth of Sydney’s trope knowledge, it’s probably a bad idea for her to consider all potential future twists and turns. Obviously she should think about the consequences of her actions, but there is a real danger of mental paralysis here.
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The best jokes are time delayed.
Also, best if you fess up Halo, the odds of you keeping quiet are rather small.
Yeah, she should at least tell Maxi about that HoloPort, maybe tell her it’s something classified regarding her balls
No, she should not “tell Maxi” – she should demonstrate her new power. Preferably in such a way that gets a laugh and shows Harem up.
I understand that you got ‘HoloPort’ because it’s an extension of ‘Holo-Sydney’, but…
Shouldn’t it be ‘Halo-Port’?
Couldn’t remember the term the readers came up with :(
Definately,Shes the noob of the team and if she decides to start keeping secrets from everyone about her powers people will soon realise and start wondering what else shes been keeping secret about…..Well ok maybe not Maxima whos more familiar with her galaxy class spazzyness but its not a great way to build trust.
She’s THINKING….
More like running in mental circles….
As acknowledged, by the funny caption, under the comic.
Error: Undefined label “10”
Man… how many times have I seen THAT error message. Wait… does that mean *I* am in a recursive time loop?????
The Winslow… the Winslow… the WINSLOW!
All hail the indestructible one!
Or are you a heretic unbeliever?
Hi!
Are all of the other sentients getting enough fiber? Humans tend to melt if they don’t get enough fiber.
Lies,Thinking is several levels of sense higher than what Halo does,Shes currently mentally chasing her tail XD.
…..then there’s the consequences of *NOT* telling…..
Dark Maxima!
You can tell the difference because of the cheesy purple van dyke.
Just sayin’.
Actually an Evil Max in silver and red would be really badass.
What is the female verion of the classic evil beard or moustache? I guess women can have evil eyebrows too.
Evil cackle, manical laugh?
Diabolical snickering?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/21/Muttley-picture.gif
“Heh, heh, heh.”
If you play Saints Row 4 as a female, there is a mission where you are in a simulation playing a Solid Snake like game. The villain is you, but with an evil moustache.
Yes, even if you are female.
To be fair that’s in an alien controlled Matrix-like simulation.
Those guys at Volition are good at over-the-top. Like in one of the DLCs, where you’re riding on the back of a sapient reptile. “Let me sing you the song of my people.”
“Boom boom, shaka laka laka boom.”
Me: “Oh, no. They did not just go there!”
“Boom boom, shaka laka boom boom.”
Me: *FACEDESK* “Yes. Yes, they did.”
( Here’s a YouTube link to the song, just in case anyone hasn’t already recognized it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYKupOsaJmk )
Does it actually have you saying “shaka” instead of “aka”? It does kinda make sense to do it like that, but…
You’re right, in the game it’s “aka” (possibly for copyright reasons). But in the original song, it’s “shaka”.
Scratch that. Yes, it’s “acka” in the game AND the original song.
Black lipstick is kind of evil right?
but lipstick doesn’t stay on Maxima’s surface…
And that’s how you know it’s the Evil Maxi: her red lips are now black, and there’s no way for her to hide them
In my experience “evil” looks for women involve their outfits going black and far more stripperiffic.
So Basically, Dark Maxima would dress like Dabbler, and smile a lot more.
Or Barb Wire and swear a lot?
Tight black leather dominatrix gear. Basically, lots of exposed flesh, maybe some spikes here and there. Basically this https://superherouniverse.com/art/data/529/medium/MALICE_copy.jpg
Bump! Watching Malice take down Mr Fantastic was the first time I ever jumped out of my seat and shouted “Yes!” while fist pumping. He was such an ass.
Lol. Not familiar with the event but your passion is clear.
During the John Byrne run on the Fantastic Four, he did many very cool things with various members of the cast and very old plotlines. Malice, Mistress of Hate was simultaneously the vilest and coolest thing (although Skrull-milk-cow-dairy-town was a very close second).
https://macmcentire.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/malice3.jpg This is the panel i’m refering to…..
I was especially pleased with Malice’s realization the SHE is the badass of that team – The Boyz don’t even challenge.
I just quickly made a mockup of this idea: https://i.imgur.com/WD1ofrv.jpg
from DC’s ‘Young Justice’ [original series] #16, when Arrowette though that she’d have to become a super-villain:
“Oh God… I’ll have to get a tight, skimpy black leather outfit that shows off my cleavage.
““Oh God… I’ll have to get cleavage.”
:-D
Female evil counterparts get skimpier outfits. And are usually lesbians or bi.
Hey, if it worked for Evil Kira and Evil Willow, sure, go for it…
Even good Willow was lesbian/bi. I felt that her most defining characteristic though was the dark veins, in her face, offset by a more pallid complexion. Hence often being referred to as “Dark Willow”.
The preference for skimpy outfits though, that I give you
Even as a ghost, Willow was too timid and repressed to risk showing a bit of flesh. Although she did come out of her shell a bit more, as the character progressed.
Laughs behind hand.
Location of the Van Dyke to be decided…
That moment when you finally get a joke and feel stupid for not understanding sooner…
Bodie in panel two looks like Luna from “TMI”, and, so does Sydney in the last two panels (she sometimes needs a ‘mental reboot’ when she is processing information) :D
So lolled at the ACME joke but then the part about heatwave just took everything away.
Maybe it is me, but whats the point of these panels at this place in the story (and page for that matter).. I am probably missing something but it looks like a random additional info screen on a character.
I was thinking the same thing (and commented about it a little lower) until I noticed someone else commenting about the forest fires Sydney had started when she was attacking the golem. So apparently they brought in Heatwave to put out Sydney’s forest fires.
its because while sidney was firing the ppo at the robot, she set the nearby forest on fireand now heatwave is extinguishing it while dabbler explain how she can do it!
Also, as a public agency, they would want to stop any potential disasters that they were a part of, besides the saving the forest from Sydney’s PPO experiment.
For PR purposes, makes more sense to clear the fire ASAP before anyone even knows it was a problem.
I agree with all of the above responses, but it still feels out of place. Feels like something that could have been done better the next day as a comment by Ariana or Max during the debriefing, “And thanks go to Heatwave for absorbing the fires around the battle site before it spread to the whole forest, I know you don’t like doing that.” Heatwave: “Sucking cold feels ooky. But this was hot enough, I didn’t mind much.”
I pictured it differently in my head. There was a bigger panel showing the scope of the fire, but trying to fit it on this page probably does make it disjointed. It probably would have been better on a different page, maybe as a flashback like “what happened to the forest fire?” “Oh, Heatwave sucked it up.” or something.
Oh as an (almost) full page art panel.
In the corner Syd asks “Hey, whatever happened to that fire I started?”
Rest of the page: Heatwave floats in the air in a forest cleaning, wreathed in flames, ribbons of fire spiralling to her from the trees, lighting the scene.
Is Krona actually searching for the reboot button on Sydney there?
Possibly, or simply just ‘poking’ her to see if she’s still there, which prompted her ‘reboot’ line
Nah, rebooting’s more of a SYS than a POKE.
(ye gods, I’m old)
GOTO floor_rolll_around_giggling
There’s a strong chance Krona could actually find one.
It is much better to cleanly shutdown and restart than pushing the reboot button. That is why most computers these days do not come with a reboot button.
I wish more would (molly-guarded, of course). I’ve had (this year, even) programs hang so badly that Windows stopped recognizing input, leading to the need to force-kill the computer (in one case, by pulling the battery and AC adapter from a laptop). A motherboard-level reboot button would be handy some days.
Yeah, killing power the hard isn’t optimum, but Windows never goes completely stupid, just ask MS…
Hold the power button for 5 seconds. Most power supplies recognize this as a hard shutdown. It does not rely on the processor or the BIOS, so it should work even if the processor gets totally locked up.
That’s the usual go-to, and the preferred one, since if it’s a hard-coded command on the mobo it’ll send the “park” signal to the HDD. This was one that for whatever reason didn’t work with the usual hard-shutdown routine.
This is why all computers need a hard on/off switch, not these pansy software-overridden things on most modern laptops.
Even most modern laptops can be hard-shut down by holding the power button (have had that happen several times when the not even the Vulcan Death Pinch would work after the machine stopped responding)
Yeah, but I’ve had computers lock up so hard that that won’t work. It usually implies damage to the motherboard, but I’ve seen it happen, esp in cases where the laptop was insufficiently cooled.
Did you try turning her off then on again?
Well Dabbs can handle the “On” part, in an entirely “no homo” way, just “ON” without saving throw.
But “Off”? I guess Math might be able to handle that with some well timed lecherous comments. Or in worst case they could borrow the Objectifier from Gyno-Star…
https://www.gynostar.com/archives/comic/but-the-men-are-idealized-too
What’s the female equivalent of the Male Non-Maskable Interrupt of BOFH fame? I’m guessing it involves making tight grip on two very sensitive protrusions and twisting, but I wouldn’t really recommend that.
Shed be better off giving Syd a karate chop to the head XD
Whoa. I can so relate to Sydney here. You call it “tropelock”, but it’s also “analysis paralysis” and the less catchy “overthinking”.
I’ve also seen “Hall of Mirrors Fever” (h/t David Weber & Eric Flint)
I don’t think overthinking is really it here. Sydney has not had the time to put any thought into it. It is actually something she really does need to decide. In two out of the three battles they have fought Maxima has been subjected to a mind-affecting attack.
This time the mesmerising robot had a crack in its hypnotic eyes. The next time they may not be so lucky. Against a powerful attack Maxima’s strong will shall not be enough.
Keeping this ability secret could save Halo’s life. Being caught concealing it though will potentially alienate her new boss right now. And Sydney is a dreadful liar.
Until she has found an adequate solution, Sydney has not thought it through enough.
I doubt if it could save Halos life from Maxima since she already has unbreakable shields that fullfill that purpose but in a less idealistic universe it would probably eventually get government agents watching the team working out viable plans to kill off the new hero whos been trying to hide her exponentially growing powers from “the good guys” before its too late..
The only unbreakable power we have witnessed is Achilles’s invulnerability. Note that his is the only super power rated as six stars, in the cast list. Which I take to indicate an absolute. He cannot be harmed by any means. Which is corroborated by the fact that testing has failed to find any way of harming him. Sydney’s shield only rates five stars.
It is worth noting that the star rating also includes a utility modifier. The fact that it can protect a crowd, for example, will be factored into its rating. So we should not assume that a versatile five star defense can actually resist a brute force five star attack.
Of further worry is the fact that, after Maxima’s nuke demonstration, she confided to Sydney that such was not the limit of her power! So it is safer for Halo to assume that her shield would not be adequate against Evil Maxima. It is one of those things that get it wrong and you are dead. Hence erring on the side of caution is wise.
But by the same token even the biggest nuke weve seen from Maxima didnt even make Halo feel warm behind the safety of her shields,Ill believe that Halos shields can be broken through when we hit a point where it shows that a character can push them to their upper limit.So unless Maximas Max level attack can commit Terracide i currently doubt something of equal rating can break the shields with no known limit.
It’s pretty much Heatwave to say “Shooting heat is cool.”
Well, one of them makes her hot and the other frigid. Her whole image is on the lines!
Don’t say that to her face, she might get the joke a week later.
if thats our time she’s doing better than deshante.
Why is it the ones with heat/fire powers are always a bit dim?lol
that one’s easy, they’re brains are overheated
I have not read a broad enough selection of super stuff to know. But the one that is most famous is the Human Torch. I guess he is a bit dim, when compared to Mr Fantastic, but there again so is pretty much everyone else. Personally I would categorise him as hotheaded.
Now if you have literal built in firepower, and no innate defense, then ‘offense is your best defense’ is a reasonable maxim. Kill the enemy before they kill you. As such I know that fire users* in multi-player games do tend to be hot-headed.
Trouble is if their skill level, or power, is not sufficient to guarantee a quick kill, then they are extremely vulnerable to counter-attack. Meaning that team mates either have to devote extra time to defending them, or suffer the risk of a loss. Fair enough if they are using their powers judiciously. But it builds resentment if they are too hotheaded. And this will then be perceived as being dim.
Which it is, but lacking in wisdom, rather than necessarily intelligence. They have the foresight to know what tactics to use, but lack the self-control and experience to implement it effectively.
Similar effects doubtless flavour the other media too, for those reasons. Johnny Storm often being portrayed as not being a team player, because of the tensions this builds up.
Whereas Heatwave runs contrary to that. She really is slow on the uptake. Not stupid, but just taking her time to process the information. Much like Harem above, she will get there in the end.
We have not seen how that translates into combat, as Heatwave has only been in the one engagement. However she did survive as a vigilante, despite her lack of defenses. So I suspect that she recognises her limitations (as we would expect of someone who is not actually dumb, just slow). Which would likely translate into her trying to take her time to assess situations, rather than leaping in, based on first impressions.
I think Heatwave will have found out the hard way that she makes mistakes when doing that.
* Plus other ‘blaster’ types, but fire tends to be particularly dangerous in books, games and other media, simply because we know how deadly even a dropped cigarette can be. So various decisions, subtly flavoured by the instinctive fear of out-of-control fire, will shape the mechanics of the setting, to emphasise this.
In Harem’s favor, most people (like me probably) would have forgotten that Sidney made that joke after two days.
Possibly for a regular person they would have forgotten. As quantum personality in 5 bodies who can get bored easy since she has done everything would almost certainly remember anything that they don’t know or understnad – until they do.
Along that line, Harem LOVES the new team member, she actually surprises her frequently with such odd thoughts even Harem hasn’t considered them.
But for Harem it has been ten (nine?) days since that joke.
She can parallel think, but she doesn’t have the wetware to process thoughts faster than other people.
Also in her favour Id be too embarrassed that it took me two days to spot a simple pun to go back and admit it lol.
So Sydney. Would you rather have the risk of Dark Maxima knowing you can teleport later, or actual Maxima finding out you withheld information from her sooner?
A youth spent reading comics have taught me that all these scenarios could trigger the Dark Maxima transformation.
Yeah? Which part? The telling or the not telling? o_O
both.
Sydney’s thought bubble: You were the chosen one! You were to bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness.
Y’know, that prophecy should have let any logically/critically-thinking Jedi know to leave it the heck alone. Anakin did bring balance to the Force, or at least its organized users. He left 2 Sith and 2 Jedi – and then he never took an apprentice (at least now that Force Unleashed and its sequel are officially non-canon).
And now Son of Skywalker is about to finish what his father started: the Sith are gone, and now it’s time to end the Jedi
Yeah I still cant work out how a prophecy about balance can be seen as a good thing to the Jedi given at the time they were almost certain that theyd made the sith extinct.Still given how they trained and indoctrinated Jedi it was only a matter of time til things went horribly wrong anyway.
“Bringing balance to the Force” had nothing to do with the number of Jedi and Sith in the galaxy.
A “dark sider” is a force-sensitive individual using the dark side of the Force. A Sith, despite all their talk about the power of the Dark Side, sought to enslave the Force itself, in all its aspects, to their service.
There was also some info in the Clone Wars animated series during three episodes: Overlords, Altar of Mortis, and Ghosts of Mortis. In those episodes, it is shown that the Light side and the Dark side are an equally important part of the Force, both being necessary to the harmony of the galaxy.
In one episode, Anakin must pass a test to show if he’s the Chosen One, and he does so by controlling both sides of the Force at the same time. So it seems that in the Star Wars universe, the Dark Side is not evil by nature (a position held by Vergere for instance), and that it’s closer to a yin/yang situation, where harmony comes from balance between the two sides.
So the prophecy probably means that Anakin would bring harmony between the two sides of the Force, which requires the destruction of the Sith, whose aim was to destroy the Light side. Further proof can be had, by reading the two different versions of the Jedi Code.
Original version (pre-Anakin):
Emotion, yet peace.
Ignorance, yet knowledge.
Passion, yet serenity.
Chaos, yet harmony.
Death, yet the Force.
Post-Ruusan version:
There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no death, there is the Force.
The original version acknowledges and seeks balance between both sides of the Force; the “revised” version tries to deny the very existence of the Dark Side.
Sorry, an entire sentence got left out of my first post. So I’ll sum up:
The Jedi were misinterpreting the prophecy. It did not mean what they thought it meant.
So in short the only way to create balance is to kill every Jedi and Sith and hope like hell that any new ones practice both sides rather than just picking one.Brilliant,Balancing the force is like keeping all the worlds politicians honest and altruistic.
More or less, yeah. Though Luke did try to master both sides of the Force (in the comics, anyway).
I attended the regional premiere,* in Louisiana, for the episode where it did go wrong. When I was discussing it with my friends, immediately afterwards, I was saying “Boy did the Emperor ham up** his attempt to induce Mace Windu to attack him. He really must have been using the force powerfully, on him, for Mace not to see through or resist that!”
To which he replied. “What, no, Windu was just being really viscous and deserved what he got!”
Everybody was unbelieving that he could have that take. Especially as it became apparent that he wholeheartedly accepted the Emperor’s version of events, that he was the poor innocent, set upon by the evil Jedi.
In fact he even went so far as to disbelieve that the guy had maneuvered events for the purpose of becoming Emperor.
I actually had to ask another friend, who I knew much better than him “Is this guy for real? Or is he just a better actor than those guys on screen? He seems to genuinely believe what he is saying?”
She answered “Yup, he really does have strange takes on things. And no point trying to convince him otherwise. I gave up on the whole ‘political maneuvering’ side of things. Apparently he is just a misunderstood civil servant, trying to do his best for the galaxy!”
* Relevant because these were first impressions, not filtered through a reviewer or press opinion.
** Note that the actor playing the role did a brilliant job. He played the Emperor well. Part of which was that, although he was a good deceiver, the Emperor was not a trained actor. Hence the ‘overplaying’ was highly appropriate for the character.
Tell Maxima that there’s some classified information that she should fly you way up in the sky to here. You have justification to in this case because everything about the com-ball is highly classified already.
Yups, was thinking this as well
Technically Heatwave, absorbing heat is cool.
Not to the one who is doing the absorbing, and as DaveB explained absorbing some-one or -thing elses heat can be unpleasant, leaving one with the feeling of needing to scrub yourself clean… from the inside
Its cool to everyone watching tho.
That’s hot
Hey Krona, to reboot Sydney you have to hit her head on a desk. It works, Sydney barely reacted when Harem teleported behind her.
No, that was a reset, not a reboot
So what then? Click her power button?
*goes off to have a cold shower*
Syd will have to mention the teleport option. How else can she explain her own death. Can, at least, stall due to confidentiality.
In my own little Work In Progress I have a super who can move heat around. She finds it easier to make things cold, as it is just an absence of heat, but making things catch fire or melt is more difficult as she has to concentrate the heat in one area. Not impossible, just takes more time and effort. She can be a little frosty at times.
So is that a scientific explanation for Ice powers?
Temperature is simply molecular agitation. Cold powers would then involve manipulating that vibrational energy. Ice power are different since even a humid room contains only a little water. To get Iceman effects requires some form of hydrokinesis to move or create water. Avatar waterbending is a good example.
It would need to be a very humid area to be able to pull ice out of the air. You might get a fog or, in very humid areas, a touch of light snow. You would need a kettle boiling before you could make a snowball from nothing.
Mr Incredible: “You’re out of ice? You can’t be out of ice! I thought you could use the water in the air!”
Frozone: “There IS NO WATER IN THIS AIR!”
There’s this steampunk anime “Steamboy” where the key point is the discovery of a way of holding steam at very high density and human-comfortable temperature. Think about that a bit… and while you’re thinking about it, drink a glass of water.
Yep. And Magneto can kill someone with the iron in their own blood.
;)
Anyone up for a large, leafy-green salad?
Three moves ahead….. Just three
Bwahaha. I love that Harem had to go give Sydney her props even 2 days later.
but yeah. Tell her orb related, and krona probably has a log.
What is up with the sudden Heatwave explanation in the middle of the page? Just a quick filler or something? Not that I mind, I like learning some new stuff about the characters and their abilities, but it feels a bit random here.
Never mind, I figured it out, it is Heatwave putting out Sydney’s forest fires with an explanation of what she is doing.
if we go more than a couple pages without some ability or origin exposition, the world ends.
Time Travel will do that to you
EVERY
DAMN
TIME….
Learn from this folks…. keep your powers at the “I can blow up a small house” size…once you go beyond that there’s time travel and planets exploding and ancient beings and galaxy destroying armies and just never any time to eat pizza and sit on your ass watching TV.
Yep, Time Travel ruins EVERYTHING.
Give me super-godlike powers, but do NOT give me the ability to mess with time.
Yeah, most people actually hate, hate, HATE dealing with time travel. For a good example, the comic “All Night Laundry” is a good example of why.
Dammit. When reading the comment, about not seeing fire in the forest, in the previous comic, I did consider going with the possibility that Heatwave might be able to either directly put out fires. But I then focused on the fact that just because one angle did not show the fire, it did not mean that it was not still burning.
Still it is enjoyable to see that is how it panned out. And I suspect that smug-self-satisfaction is probably one of the seven-lesser-known-slightly-poorly-sins. An infirm offspring of pride.
I had completely forgotten about the forest fires myself and now me wondering what Heatwave was doing on the page (as in, why was she given a random science corner exposition) feels pretty dumb.
I would not have phrased it that way myself. But the transition was pretty incongruous. It could have done with a lead-in, such as a panel with Harem relaying a message from Heatwave, that ‘the forest fire is under control’.
Dave is squeezing in a lot of odds and ends here, before moving on to whatever comes next, so an extra panel would not have been viable. Plus having an image of Harem, would loose the mental image of her maintaining that pose with Sydney, above. Which would be a shame.
So what I think would have served the purpose better here would be some dialogue from Heatwave (using the ‘over the comms’ speech bubble effect).
“Harem, the fire is under control. Please tell Maxima.”
Only YOU can forget forest fires.
Sydney, I love you thinking thirty three steps ahead.
One hundred and thirty three,Shes probably already working out how shes going to run Arcswat thirty years into the future when she realises that everyones really in the matrix and shes neo…….what?The further ahead you think the more abstract things get!
Except we literally just saw Maxima being subjected to a mental attack. One that would have overcome her, if it were not for the damage that the construct had sustained, prior to Maxima engaging.
Plus in their first battle Maxima was clearly being incited, by the aggro aura, to use excessive force. Remember her pounding Vehemence into the ground with a huge pillar? Likewise ripping his arm off! That time Maxima was acting under the influence of a mind-affecting power.
These are not abstract. Nor are they some distant possibility. It is something that has occurred more often than not, in their fights to date!
So we have to assume that every combatant in universe can mindrape Maxima into killing everyone?If that trick was that common some random country wouldve conquered america by now in universe by taking control of Maxima when she was in the military.
Sides this “Mindcontrol attack” Was only designed to Mesmerise Maxima long enough to get a kill shot in,If the bloodbots could openly mindcontrol everyone they met by looking at them everyone would be toast.
Not every combatant no. Simply because most supers in the country know they will be outclassed by Maxima so will go out of their way to avoid attracting her attention!
However ALL of those who have mind-affecting powers know that they can take her. And are popping out of the woodwork to do just that!
Re your last neither of us actually know what the mental attack was designed to do. However we do know that Sciona was totally confident that this construct WAS a game changer. Given that she is a veteran combatant,* Sydney is safer planning for the worse option of the two. There is no reason why Sciona may have only produced the one, after all.
Again this is a matter of the fail safe. If you are right, then it may be a long time until Sydney faces an evil Maxima. In the meantime the risk is only to her friendship with Maxima, not her life. But if Sydney maintains the secret until that eventual day comes, she still has her slight advantage.
Whereas if I am right then giving up that advantage means that Sydney has nothing that Maxima does not know inside out. Maxima is a veteran fighter, in two wars. As you point out elsewhere, she can mop the floor with Halo. This is confirmed by the fact that Halo rates seven star overall power, whereas Maxima is nine (and with a question mark in the tenth star position).
If Halo has the time to be trained, gain combat experience, fill out her skill tree, and learn to use all of her powers well, then she will likely exceed Maxima’s power someday. But if Maxima turns evil today, from an undamaged brother construct, then Sydney is toast. Unless she has an ace up her sleeve.
She better just not get caught cheating!
* Who’s capabilities clearly worried Ingsol. Enough to put Sciona at the top of his list of possible suspects, despite the fact that they believed her to be dead!
Groan… two days ago in-universe, more than two and a half years ago for us readers… ;)
At least its not being held up by Syds idea of whats funny =).
In my opinion it is probably better to tell Maxima the whole story, including the new abilities. After all, there might come a situation where a teleporter is needed while Harem is busy or otherwise not available and if they don’t know Sydney can fill that slot they might try doing something unnecessarily risky instead.
Syd will be limited in distance (ie sending the lightbe before teleporting) but may have a larger weight restriction.
Imagine Sydney appearing in an army tank in the middle of the enemy. Once they have had a few potshots at the hologram (any maybe shot some of their own through it) she then ports over and the tank is suddenly real. The tank may be beyond her, but you get the idea.
I can already see Sydney, sitting in a tank, making ‘pew pew’ noises at the enemies she sees through holo-Sydney while waiting for the call to make the jump.
Though my initial thought was more along the lines of getting in somewhere without setting off any alarms or booby traps, kinda like she already did in Sciona’s hideout before being spotted.
Would a Holo-Halo, being an opaque illusion, set off laser beam intruder detectors?
You know the ones I mean…the type the spies and ninjas have to Parkur through to avoid.
Setting off the alarms to bring security to the wrong area might be useful in some instance.
There was this James Bond movie wannabe where the lasers were very powerful and the guy lit his ciggerette with one of the beams….but it gave just a little when it was touched revealing the prop/special effects guys were using a red hot wire.
Opaque but not impermeable, the lasers would go through. Most modern sensors wouldn’t find her, except old fashioned cameras and microphones…
But she’s opaque so light doesn’t go through her, and lasers are just bright light.
Not bright, coherent. Remember, the Sydney image stuck it’s hand through Arriana’s head. laser would do the same. A motion sensor based on normal light would work, but there’s too many ways to beat those, microwave is the standard….
If light could go through, she’d be see through. She’s not.
its like people have forgotten the first strips.
You mean just like how Hex’s lasers went through Halo’s transparent forcefield, except they didn’t?
It is shown actual powers don’t follow physics the way we tend to think.
They were energy attacks, sure. Whether they were lasers though is another matter.
One would expect a sophisticated defense system to allow the people/vehicle being protected to still have means of observing the outside world, being able to navigate and communicate.
The orbs manipulate the machine code of reality. Meaning that they could either fine tune the shield’s defenses that low intensity, harmless radiations, can pass, whilst the dangerous ones are blocked. Potentially doing so selectively, such that all the light, sound and radio waves, from a harmful source, are blocked.
Given that we cannot even replicate force-fields, clearly that is far beyond our technological capabilities. However we can do basic stuff like having glasses with reactive materials. So that we can see normally most of the time, but they darken when it gets too bright.
We would even have the choice of making them go completely opaque, and not letting any light pass. Or making them reflective, in a similar way. Neither of which is that useful for eyewear though, so we opt to just limit the amount of light passing.
With a clever use of detectors linked up to materials like that which reacted to electrical stimulus, we could even selectively change just part of a visor, at a time. I can envisage a space helmet like that.
As the astronaut turns towards the sun, the sensors block out the part of the visor which lies between the astronaut’s eyes and the sun. Much like the Moon does, in an eclipse. Thus allowing her to carry on working on an object, without being blinded by having the sun in her face.
So such effects are possible within the realm of physics. When looking at a reasonable analogy, that we are capable of manipulating.
Of course Sydney’s orbs (and Krona for that matter) could potentially cheat, as you say, and simply re-write any pesky physics laws that were proving to be problematic.
RobK, if the Holo-Halo generates its own light (which it does, or you wouldn’t be able to see it), laser light can still pass through.
Hollywood Physics at work. The only time you should be able to see a beam is when airborne dust or aerosol is scattering some of the light, or if the beam is so powerful it’s ionizing the air along its path (and if it’s that powerful it will probably blow a hole through the wall, and whatever’s on the other side of that wall.) The lasers used by those motion detectors follow FCC regulations, which limits them to 0.05 mW. Most definitely not enough to light a cigarette.
In dust-free conditions, no matter what color the laser is, you should only see the spot where it hits the wall, because the wall is scattering and reflecting some of the light, unless the wall is painted in a color designed to absorb the same wavelength as the laser. Also, the Mythbusters tested different ways to defeat those sensors. Kari tried flicking some powder from a makeup brush into the air; while it did make the beams visible, it also blocked enough of the beam to set off the alarm.
Panels 3 and 4:
Very, very smart move, good sir. The subtlety is very much appreciated.
On the previous page we had the feedback about Krona having a case of ‘monkey face’ in panel 5. Whilst I actually liked the effect, I did actually agree with the point.
Recalling that though, and seeing Krona poking Sydney, in the final panel above, reminded me of this image. Different dynamics mind. But it made me laugh all the more, coming on top of the reboot gag itself.
Imagine the caption with a thick Indian accent.
I always did. Unusually so for me, as I rarely overlay an accent on even speech bubbles. Even though I know, for example, that Sydney is American, I have never ‘heard’ her speaking in, say, a Texas accent.
But the dialogue in that caption is so suggestive of Indian dialogue, that it happened automatically.
Please don’t make Sydney Texan.
She probably isn’t, Spicefreak… but think about this: DaveB has strongly implied that the ARC-Swat HQ is somewhere in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area (which makes sense, because that’s where Dave lives.) So if she is Texan, that’s why.
Being both non-american and terrible at geography, I had no idea. Useful information that explains Yorp’s specificity, thanks.
But I love girls with exotic accents! American ones are no exception.
Besides which I used to have a very broad Afrikaans accent. Whilst the Texas accent does stand out, from the far side of a crowded restaurant, so did mine. So, even though some Brits might find it extreme, it is one that I like.
The only one I have heard, which bothered me at all (and then mostly from not being able to place its origins, and finding it quite odd) was from one of the cold northern states. Turns out that it was of Swedish decent. But different enough that it threw me, when I first heard it.
Texan is an extreme case indeed but, just becau
Argh, tablet fail posted part of an early draft. You are right in saying that the typical texan accent stands out but standing out isn’t generally something that bothers me. I don’t honestly know what I dislike about texan and californian accents but I know it doesn’t extend to things like afrikaans.
I’m regularly asked where I’m from because noone can place my accent. I tell them I was born in scotland and raised in england with an accent from neither. I’ve been told it’s southern by northerners, northern by southerners, australian by scots, american by londoners and even afrikaans (which it isn’t even close to) by one person. I was very happy when a texan tourist finally told me I had a nice, normal british one.
My funniest accent incident was at a convention in the USA. The main organiser announced to everyone “We have a special prize to give away, but have not decided how to award it yet.” To which I promptly called out “How about awarding it to the person who has travelled the furthest to attend?”
Needless to say, with my accent, that got a lot of laughs. Including from the organiser. “Well putting on a fake British accent will not help you win it, I am afraid.”
Which had my American friends, around me, all splitting their sides laughing. So they called out “Nope, you have that wrong, he really is English!”
To which I popped took my passport out of my pocket and waved it, in the air. “Yup.”
That said though it was one that I had deliberately assumed. At about age nine or ten I had to make a conscious decision whether to fight to retain my original accent, or to tone it down and blend in. I opted for the easier route. Doing so very easily, as I spoke half a dozen languages at that time, and had a very good ear tor accents, so could pass as a native in half of them.
So I do have a very good fake British accent. In addition to being British.
I would’ve gone with Irish, but then again I’m quite intoThe IT Crowd.
Krona is gonna reboot Sydney??? Good luck to you Krona!
Krona is the one person where it is actually a literal possibility that she could do that.
The best reboot I can think of would be a boot to the butt…Keep it gentle, but imposible to ignore, because…You know…Pew Pew Orb.
Sydney forgot a very important angle to consider here: Nega-Sydney. If they have to fight an evil copy of Sydney, Max should know all her powers. On the other hand, if Sydney herself has to turn on the team, it would be best to have a secret.
Batman would probably advise Sydney to tell only him – then create a counter-strategy to use against her. Now, who in Arc is most like Batman….?
Yeah, that’s why Blatman is the ultimate DC Villain: he has gotten all the heroes to confide in him the one ultimate weakness, and he has used that knowledge to create little boxes for every hero, but not a single one for any villain
No, he has an entire computer for the villains.
I actually think his Protocols are a twisted sign of respect and kinship with the other heroes- he’s so ridiculously self-sacrificing that he considers his own life of minimal importance compared to the lives of innocents, and would rather be killed than kill- and I think the Protocols are an extension of that, where he’s internalized the other heroes as ‘People like him’ so much that he figures they’d rather have their own personalized ‘kill button’ plans than have ones for their enemies.
He’s delusional, of course, but nobody said Batman was sane/i>.
“We were crazy, we were kinky, we were Nazis, but we did what we thought was right.” – not an exact quote, but for all his boy-scout-ness, Hollis Mason had a good idea of what costumed heroes were all about.
Well, most costumed heroes, anyway. There are always the Booster Golds and Caped Baldies of the world (actually, Saitama is trying to do right, and usually does, he’s just more interested in the ‘having fun and finding a worthy challenge” side of the thing – kinda like Math).
Hero/Villain.
The one who wins makes the distinction,
Generally it’s much easier to stop the Heroes than it is to stop the Villians. Besides, clearly the heroes aren’t all that bright in DC… HOW many times has the Joker escaped prison? And don’t get me started on Lex Luthor. Where as in Marvel, most villians simply aren’t captured in the first place, or they actually STAY in prison until something big occurs, IE a huge jailbreak. None of that “Oh, I escaped without anyone noticing… Because reasons” that DC pulls with Arkham all the time.
Arkham either has the laxest security in the DCverse, or else it’s true what they say: “The lunatics have escaped and are running the asylum.”
I think it’s DC canon that Harley Quinn covertly helped the Joker to escape a few times while she was still on the staff there…
If the various Arkham video games are canon, that statement is more true than you know, Rock, The warden himself is insane (dissociative identity disorder)… he claims he’s channeling the spirit of Arkham’s founder, Dr. Amadeus Arkham.
Dr. Amadeus Arkham was himself driven insane by the murder of his wife and child by Martin “Mad Dog” Hawkins, who he eventually strapped to an electrotherapy table and electrocuted to death.
And even before that, the architect who designed Arkham Asylum became mentally unwell and hacked his workers to death with an axe, and ended up committed for life to the asylum he had built. Not to mention Dr. Harleen Quinzel, Dr. Jonathan Crane, Dr. Hugo Strange, and Lyle Bolton (aka “Lock-Up”), all of whom worked at Arkham and were (or went) insane and undoubtedly helped some of the inmates escape.
The security systems are state-of-the-art (made by WayneTech, of course)… the problem is, the security guards themselves are human, and therefore can be blackmailed, bribed, go insane (like Lock-Up did), etc.
I swear they need to get John Constantine to come look at that place, there’s way too much evil and crazy that just happens to go on there.
Yea, that had been my take on the above. The place needs a major-league exorcism carried out on it!
Yikes. As if the very name of ‘Arkham’ didn’t already invoke the Cthulhu mythos, as written by H.P. Lovecraft.
Maybe the asylum is built over the prison of one of the Great Old Ones, explaining all the horror and bloodshed that has seeped into the asylum’s very stones?
@Rock
I like the way you think.
That’s the other part of the Greatest Villain in DC: he is the one who releases Joker and the other lesser villains for further training, and as for Luthor: he can pay off almost anyone (except for the “Super Girl” TV writers)
That is why the best villain is the one no one knows exists.
By helping to form the Justice League & staying with it for so long, Batman had the strategy to have them take him down if he goes rogue. Batman already knows he could wind up being the “ultimate villain” so he has the Justice League as a group to stop him.
;)
Nah she knows that Maxima is a hard counter for her-for one shes shiny and thus distracting and two shes nerdy enough to say something comics related that would make an evil Sydney freeze up like now(aaaaaaaand at a push im pretty sure Arcswat can ship in some laser pointers).
Heatwave is lucky she can absorb heat without growing hotter, or she’d be burning through her clothes right now. ^_^ And there’s been quite a lot of accidental and not-so-accidental exposure already….
Lucky for her that controlling heat is part of her powerset, no?
Heatwave sounds better than heat pump, but that’s what she is apparently…
At the molecular level she can alter something’s temperature by affecting how fast the atoms vibrate. I would say go with the name ‘Vibe’ but that one is already taken*.
* He was recruited into the JLA, then killed off, then brought back, then killed off, then brought back again, then killed off again. So, check his latest status to see if the name is currently available.
The Human Vibrator is currently still alive, and active
And making a lot of money in the porn industry…
Maybe that’s WHY Heatwave is hot. Absorbed too much heat and BOOM, curvier and red-haired. XD
What’s going on? I’m not able to follow this or the previous page. Are any of these things connected?
Previous page has Harem informing Maxima on what is happening as well as jokes about Hiro’s size.
Current page has:
– Harem making a joke that she realizes Sydney made already back during the fight with Vehemence;
– Heatwave putting out the fires caused by the golem deflecting Sydney’s rapid fire with explanation from Dabbler;
– Maxima trying to debrief Sydney but Sydney locking up due to overthinking.
I have to say,I remember Sydney had a Looney Tunes moment, but completely forgot that Harem didn’t get the reference. Checked the dates, that joke was over 2 years ago at this point! The Heatwave explanation in the middle of the page also isn’t really necessary, I can trust that the fire was taken care of, don’t really care how. Sydney’s little brain freeze works and is funny though. I can’t see any reason for her not to tell Maxima everything though. However, let’s just limit it to one page, the audience already knows the full story so need to drag on re-telling it.
I think the problem she having isn’t with telling Maxima everything, Dark Maxima scenario notwithstanding, but she’s not sure of how much might exceed the security clearance of some of those present.
That is what she should be thinking about, not what she is thinking about.
Midichlorians were a bad non-answer answer to a question nobody was asking.
The Heatwave panels are a good, but badly-presented, answer to a question nobody was asking.
Imagine instead: “Heatwave reporting. Fires are out. Damn I hate absorbing heat.”
First general order of an Artist: “SHOW, DON’T TELL.”
(Actually, seventh, I think. But the order isn’t important.)
Several years before “The Prequels”, we had a character in a Champions Game who called herself Octarine (insert Pratchett nods here). We eventually found out that her power was actually millions of telekinetic microbes (or “Dots” as we called them) that had evolved a primitive hivemind (they were about as smart as an Irish Setter – we learned not to ask Octarine where her Dots were as the answer was, inevitably, “Here!”). We had also found out that the Dots were fond of telepaths – they apparently found them interesting. When the player tired of the character, she decided the character must die (it was a theme for her).
Killing the character, however, didn’t kill the Dots – they remained. I had a character who specialized in creating telepathic mind networks (beginning of a Metaconcert character, for you Julian May fans). The team sent to investigate our missing comrade included my character…
Having a million or so Dots with the intelligence and personality of an Irish Setter adopt you as their host body isn’t as much fun as it sounds…
I always took the “His Midichlorians are at 9000!” lines to be a side effect of being strong in the Force in my canon, rather than granting Force ability (essentially, Force users attract lots of these thingies as a kind of benign parasite; the stronger you are, the more you will attract – “Geez, would you look at the Dots on this kid…”).
No matter what George’s disastrous dialogue skills actually had his characters say. :D
I always equated the “midi-chlorians” to the real-world “mitochondria”. Everyone has ’em, and they make life possible, because they control the concentration of calcium ions within the cell. More importantly, they take the oxygen we breathe and organic molecules such as glucose, and digest it. The energy-rich ATP that our cells need is a byproduct. It’s a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship.
George Lucas, in an interview, actually described midi-chlorians as “a loose depiction of mitochondria”, probably based on mitochondria’s description as “the powerhouse of a cell”. I had already made the mitochondria connection long before reading that interview, though.
For the moment at least, Sydney can go for the practical statement that is also professional. Since the time loop concerns the comm-ball and Sydney was told to keep its powers confidential:
“The time loop concerns matters you told me to keep confidential. We should do the debriefing in private.”
Practical and professional? This is Sydney we’re talking about here. :-)
Sydney doesn’t have the training yet to understand what to (or not) say, and then add a head stuff full of comic tropes, and you have brain lock….
Or to put it more in Sydney-speak, “Parts of it I think maybe ought to be classified.”.
It’s okay, Sydney, just do what I do: let the conversation run and stare unblinkingly at the other person while you check the wiki for unintended consequences to your decision!
I did this all the time when I went through the Mass Effect trilogy. And god dangit I STILL hate Conrad. I wish we had an option to shove him down the stairs in the Citadel.
I’d just lock him in an elevator.
Forever.
Not that hard to do. Just replace that silly one-floor elevator from the original Mass Effect with one of the elevators from my dorm room, and he’ll spend the rest of his life going up and down.
(When I was in university, the elevators in my dorm malfunctioned. One time I punched “9”, and it went up to 7, down to 2, up to 12, and finally down to 9, before the doors opened. After that happened, until the elevator guys came out and fixed it, I deliberately took the stairs.)
P.S., the elevators and the in-elevator dialogue in the original Mass Effect was intended to hide “Loads and Loads of Loading”, courtesy of the limited memory of the original X-Box. That’s why the one-floor elevator on the Normandy felt like the slowest elevator in the galaxy.
I had Morrowind on the X-box. Although I had a good range of magical items, to cover all my combat needs, I also developed some very specialist ones, just for the fun of it.
My flight item was so fast that I could cross an entire zone faster than I could load the next one! Similarly for swimming.
That was the solution that one of the Earls of E came up with, for a demon. I guess that their vulnerability to iron made it easier to bind him inside a box made of the stuff!
Damned scary elevator operator mind.
Be sure to always take an iron frying pan with you. Or a Rosemary*
* She just considers herself a common swordbunny (a.k.a. swordswoman) but has proven capable of defeating ravenous dornbeasts (a larger than person-sized dinosaur-like critter) and demons. Even with just improvised items!
Well Sydney is going to take a while… SOOooooo did anyone see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2? IT WAS AWESOME! Just encase you guys didnt know
Yes, yes it was. No spoilers, please.
Spinoff alert:
Groot is going to put together a team of sentient plants and save the day in the movie “Gardenias of the Galaxy”.
Does that mean we’re going to see a super raccoon team?
Ni.
Oh, ffs. I just got the joke as well… God damnit, i feel stupid :D
Meep meep!
Phbbt phbbt!
A legitimate oversight, young man, deserving a legitimate feeling!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBBbpyHDC-g
Now I fancy having some roadrunner!
Do you know how far I would have to swim, to satisfy that craving‽
Well it is New Mexico’s state bird. Just be sure you don’t make a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
that show the great style evolution :D
No, Gothamer has always seemed a little ‘different’ to her ‘sisters’ (personally believe that she had a nose job, hers looks more ‘Romanesque’ than the others)
I can see what you are both getting at. If we look at Harem’s who’s who we can see that despite the similar shades, those are not the same body with a new haircut. Which would otherwise be the most apparent difference at first glance.
However there is an art style evolution between the two. Harem is much more three dimensional, for example, due to DaveB‘s use of light and shadow. I would be interested to know if he feels that his own style of shading has been influenced by Keith’s?
I bet the hardest part was keeping Sydney looking so close, on this page. Given that her appearance has diverged somewhat since then.
“if you’re FartMan, the last thing you want to do is suck in a bunch of someone else’s farts.”
some one had to post it
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8167/7490208296_5026ce0e85_b.jpg
That’s what sidekicks are for.
Warning; I do not need congressional approval to launch airstrikes!
He prefers to be called… Backfire!
https://comicvine.gamespot.com/backfire/4005-68283/
(Erik Larson’s Savage Dragon is fairly awful and disjointed – but he has the worst puns for villain names. Close seconds include Furious George and Raging Woody).
All I can think of is this exchange from Animaniacs: “Hey Hemmingway, what does an anvil have to do with the plot?” “Who cares? Anvils are funny.”
It’s gonna be your highness if you don’t quit calling me that…
Maybe Sydney locked up because she’s at perfect boob height to Maxima’s overwhelming cleavage…
She’s already seen them un-covered
She’s having flashbacks then.
Half covered are often better than fully exposed.
“Srsly, no homo, but your breasts… are… uh…”
In order to keep the new power secret from Maxima, she’d have to literally never use it. The Dark Maxima scenario is much less likely than her needing the power for something else before then. Probably best to tell Maxima only, and let her decide how secret it should be.
It’s a setting with super powers. Dark Maxima is a valid concern, but no more so than dark every one else. My guess is that she’s best off telling. Command decisions will be made based on the abilities she’s known to have, and that could have real consequences.
Dark Maxima is a possibility. Not Dark Maxima needing to know the full potential of her team for planning, tactical analysis and risk assessment is certain. Fess up Sydney.
Regardless, the ability to teleport after slowly(ish) moving her lightbee to a given location isn’t exactly a Maxima thwarting power in the first place. If you are going to hold back a trump card it should actually be a trump card.
I can think of at least one way. But it would only have a high probability of success if Maxima does not know about that capability.
Hence I won’t mention it here, in case Maxima is reading this.
Considering that they already have one person on the roster that can straight up take on and beat Maxima with relative ease I think Syds overthinking things here.Damn!Theres a sentance i thought id never say.
Although Dabbler has been able to beat Maxima, in sparring, I did not get the impression that she could do so consistently. Plus sparring would limit Maxima’s options. Whereas evil Maxima would have no qualms about using a nuke-like explosion, just to take out a single opponent!
On top of which, turning evil means that the element of surprise is with the villain. The rest of the team may still think she is a friend. In which case you definitely want more than one person, who can defeat her, so that one being taken down, by surprise, may give the other the warning and chance to react.
Im pretty sure teleporting isnt a game breaking technique to bring down maxima so Syds scatterbrained thoughts are null and void,Knowing Dabbler shed probably just hit Maxi with a sleep spell or something and doesnt actually need a specific loadout to stop her.
Sides if Maxima went evil chances are shed use a mix of strength and superspeed to kill Halo and several others before they realise anythings different or shed just nuke the Arcswat HQ as hard as she can and then mop up the survivors(In the case of Achillies this would involve tossing him into space).
All good points.
Of course teleporting out of a building before it gets nuked does improve survival chances. Plus being able to give the impression of being in one spot, when actually somewhere else is a good way of surviving a sneak attack by a super speeder. However Maxima is unlikely to fall for that just using the projected image.
Contrast that though if she ‘knows’ Sydney is ‘categorically’ at one location, then Maxima would assume that the Sydney which she can see at another location is just her hologram. So Halo could turn Maxima’s knowledge of Halo’s powers against her, if that was her real body, and thereby capable of using the PPO by surprise.
This of course hinges on Evil Maxima not knowing that Sydney can teleport.
But, yes, teleporting does not automatically beat someone with Super Man-like powers. That said though Maxima does not have full power in all of her abilities, all of the time.
Take your strength and superspeed example, that mix means that Maxima’s defenses are down. Perfectly safe to do when she can act faster than Sydney can react. But not if Halo could one-shot her, from surprise, by not being in a different location to the one Maxima believes to be the case.
Just as Maxima can kill Sydney if her defenses are down, so can Halo versus Maxima.
Teleportation, when combined with all of Sydney’s other powers, is a game changer.
“by not being in a different location to the one Maxima believes to be the case” =
“by being in a different location to the one Maxima believes to be the case”
Two new orbs!
Is that a comical allusion regarding anything in panel 9 (bottom left corner of the page)?
Or are you suggesting that Sydney need not worry about concealing the teleport ability, because she has various, as yet unknown, powers to give her the edge she may need one day?
If it is the latter there are a couple of problems. One being that Sydney does not know them yet either. So they may not be of any help when she does need them. The other is that Maxima is very likely to be either directly or indirectly involved in the process of finding out what those mystery orbs functions are.
Of course similar problems apply to concealing this teleport ability. But the difference is that Sydney knows the variables here, so can assess them. Whereas the mystery orbs, and the circumstances under which they might reveal their abilities, remain just that.