Grrl Power #549 – Vampire the mass of bats
Sydney had to sit through the rest of that class, and probably a few others, but fortunately you guys don’t have to. This scene obviously takes place in the evening. Bat vampires are just as vulnerable to the sun as person shaped vampires. As to the answer to the rest of Sydney’s questions, she’ll have to wait. Maxima’s question does take precedence, what with her being commanding officer and all. You know how Sydney is. She could have kept the question train going for another 20 pages, but don’t worry, not this time guys.
Edit: A lot of people were confused by the jump from the last scene, so I added a “Later…” type caption which will hopefully help. Also I took the opportunity to shrink Max’s head a bit in the first panel because it was pretty huge. Of course, now I can’t help but notice it’s smaller than Sydney’s, which is why I drew it as bid as I did in the first place. But the big head suits Sydney, while Max is supposed to be proportioned like a normal, albeit fit yet curvy human woman.
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Audition.
Great movie.
“And now I want you to do ‘sleep’, I said I figured that I could use the Mr Fluffy Zoolander technique on the intruder. Boy did she fall for that one! Then I called Maxima.”
~ Concise post-action report, dictation (extract), Halo
I think a certain extoplasmic extraction service also took this course.
https://www.tradingcarddb.com/Images/Cards/Non-Sport/130580/130580-8682043Bk.jpg
Unfortunately, they did not sign up for the companion class “What to say when someone asks you if you’re a god”.
If someone asks if you are a god, you say yes. Class is over. Test next week. Study up by watching Ghostbusters.
I gather by the conversation, in panel one, that it wasn’t Sydney who knocked out Crimson. It seems like Max was talking about other possibilities for the green orb.
Sounded like Maxi was discussing ways to catch a vampire cloud (looked it up, a ‘cloud’ is another name for a grouping of bats)
Sounds like a bad choice for Vampires though, since it is easily confusable with their mist form or online file storage.
May not have been specifically for Vampires, and it might be just as confusing for them: “Vait! Did I just trigger Gas Form? Or just pass gas? Vhy am I getting so sleepy? Oh bugger!!”
Oh, someone is cognizant about venery. Good for you. I’m also wondering why only one bat needs to wake. Is that the “primary” bat? Is it the one holding her main “essence” or is it simply a way for her to regain consciousness quickly?
So, how does one knock out a vampire swarm of bats (as opposed to a regular swarm of vampire bats).
Garlic fumes?
Or just a magic invisible shield that shocked the shit out of the intruders.
Concussion wave. Powerful sonar pulse. High CO2 or low O2 content in the air. Mild electrical shock field. Psionic suppression. “Sleep” spell (providing all the bats together have less than 4HD and count as a humanoid).
Mystical vampires are Undead. Virus-infected ‘vampires’ (like in the ‘Blade’ or ‘Underworld’ movies) are either monstrous humanoids or aberrations, depending on the exact changes and the level of differentiation from the original morphology, metabolic rate, and any flawed physiology resulting from the infection. Regardless, a basic ‘Sleep’ spell will be less than worthless.
The student of the head of Arc-Light can cast a masive confusion wave over a neibourhoud. I think that they are over the “basic” level.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1303
Also airborne Poisons. The basic sleep spell is pretty much useless against higher level critters but there are higher ranked magics that result in similar effects like deep slumber, Symbols, Power Words as well as any divine effect with the merciful descriptor, also stat damage usually results in unconsciousness or immobilization though those are far more dangerous if use unwisely. I always liked Slime Wave for slowing down and softening up really big targets [maximized and empowered if the GM ticked me off] though also good for crowd control during riot / mass combat encounters [using merciful on the dissolve everything version]
I wonder if Halo could use the shield to produce a concussion wave.
We have seen her break the sound barrier, and that is just another name for such, so yes, Halo can.
If by “using” you mean in a way that’s different from pushing air mechanically any other way, then yes. If you meant upon creating the shield, then I’d go with No, since we’ve seen that the shield simply pops into existence, surrounding Sidney and everything in her immediate vicinity.
I’m guessing that concussive blast is one of the perks in the shield tree though.
They always try to add one in every game and it’s either super crappy or ridiculously overpowered.
Maybe that’s what you get if you link the Forb and the Fly Ball.
Telekinetics mod in Skyrim made a good one. It converted ‘fall damage’ into ‘knockback wave’. Jump off a cliff and land with the spell active, and you take no damage and send everything nearby flying.
Having worked with the council, they probably had advice on how to make a few, non-lethal, countermeasures to prevent anyone sneaking in.
They have Ant-Man defenses!
Have a Frenchie fart in their general direction?
I assume you mean those from the darker ages before running water and milled soaps …. people who didn’t bathe and consumed large quantities of atrocious wine, bread that is mostly crust, with runny, slimy, psychedelic cheese that may or may not have gone sentient?
Nah, he just figures that her mother was a hamster and her father smelled of elderberries.
Plus the French like their garlic a little more than the Italians (plus it made the joke more funner, at least for those who ‘got it’ :P)
Hey look, a white rabbit is coming.
Follow the white rabbit! Don’t be late for a very important date!
But ensure that you possess the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch first.
was I not supposed to charcol it? sorry. oh wait, it’s regenerating, and trying to chew through my chest. did someone actualy get the grenade?
I suppose it would be more effective than throwing a cow at them…
Fetchez la vache
Wow… Am I the only one who almost got whiplash going between this chapter and the previous? I have no idea how that got to this.
Boring time passed. No need to see the extra boring classes, so just skip right back to the next interesting bit.
NOPE! I definitely wondered for a second if I forgot to check on Thursday or missed a bonus update.
Well, I wondered for at most half a second, then I checked.
(Truth to be told, I find these jumps at page borders confusing & a bit annoying. Such pages should have a little “Later…” or “Elsewhere…” or such at the top, at least in general. Here it’s not a biggie since we get explanations below the page.)
This particular jump is reminiscent of when crappy cable channels let the programme run on during the ad break so when they’d cut back to it, you’ve returned mid-scene.
seconded, at least this page.
This is the only cut that comes to mind as being so abrupt….
Agreed
Usually, a cut scene (or a smash cut, as Sydney likes to call it) happens in the middle of a sentence. DaveB pulled a fast one on us & smashed that cut in the middle of a word!
This chapter (if everything after the wars factory is a new chapter) has had several skip forward events like this one. Going from at Sydney in her shop to talking to Chrona to the pool to outside the pool (that was just a little one) to the seminar and now to this.
Some could’ve used a small ‘Later at…’ dialog box though to handle the passage of locations better.
No, you’re not the only one. The last few strips have been jumping around with an attention span of, well, Sydney… ;)
Good thing that this entire webic is from Sydney’s perspective, init?
Really? Then where was Sydney in the room full of bad guys? Is her perspective clairvoyant?
You must be new, or an idiot
Hes got a point though,If the entire comics from her perspective how does she know a scene she was never at and probably never aware of?
She’s piecing together (and probably dramatizing) the story from Archon’s official (and highly classified) records and reports.
Yeah, considering all this? Is her relaying what happened in her first couple months, so she has possibly?) gotten hold of the After Action Reports and ‘elaborating’ on things
Don’t forget, we are still in the back story, and are waiting to get back to the point of the D&D game that started the comic. You know with Kopykraut, they guy who can copy powers and has trouble maintaining his accent?
The other jumps have been fine. This one took us to a new scene mid-sentence, which only really makes sense if the PoV character (90+% Sydney) is just coming to.
And Sydney discussing Vahriah’s sex hair wasn’t in the middle of a sentence? Okay, technically it wasn’t, but it was mid-conversation
I feel like I’ve missed a few pages in the last coupla weeks. I appreciate the speed up in pacing, but it’s a bit like coming out of tunnel in the mountains to an unmapped coastal landscape.
I had no problem, from a boring class to something different.
I posted this over on the Patreon comments, but I’ll put it here too:
I’m trying to think about how other comics handle scene changes. I guess I read too much manga, because I can really only think of pages of long shots of city scapes and just random background art like shots of subway stations or kids walking to school to punctuate scene and time jumps. Other than that, I guess most western comics just use the “meanwhile” or “later that evening.” I guess I need to pay more attention to that stuff while reading. But I also don’t want to give you guys a page where effectively nothing happens cause I’m establishing a new scene.
I should add I’m totally open to suggestions to make these sorts of transitions more graceful.
Just go to the top left corner of the page and add the word “LATER…” or “LATER THAT NIGHT…” or, if you want to be cute and referencial about it, “MEANWHILE, IN THE FUTURE…”
I think you meant “MEANWHILE, AT THE [HALL OF JUSTICE | LEGION OF DOOM HEADQUARTERS]…
“Anyway, after some really boring classes…” Chibi Sydney Head.
Personally I like stretching my brain when there is a jump. But I do feel sorry for folks who need to go back a page, to make sure they have not missed a double-page update. Well, I must admit I do that just to make sure, but was expecting a null result, rather than the converse.
The most important thing to do is firstly let folks know that there has been a time jump (and possibly location) change. The other is to give some context, which the heroes would be aware of, so that the reader’s are not left flailing around guessing.
In movies, due to my preferences I often do not even bother reading those, I just make a mental note that ‘the scene has changed’ and then pick up the various visual and dialogue cues that are presented. Having that prompt though is still useful, so it is a good tried and tested technique. So no reason to avoid it, unless you dislike that. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
But if you prefer to avoid text, there are ways to emulate the above. A time change by showing a digital or analogue clock, in the same way as you do your chibbies, for example. Or a calendar, tearing off the ‘Mon’ & ‘Tues’ to indicate fast forwarding a couple of days. With a single panel establishing shot, for a scene change, if it is in a totally different location.
An alternative way, to avoid the ‘turning back a page’ problem is to do the transition in mid page. So have a pithy after-climax scene, a transition panel (such as getting onto the osprey) and an establishing shot for the scene you are choosing to move to.
In movies of the last century I remember an often used trick: Fade-in the sound of the next scene while the view of the current scene fades out. This clearly announces a jump, but once in a while it’s very annoying. One particular annoying example was when the camera slowly zoomed in on a hand wearing ring with a small blue stone (rather quiet scene), then suddenly the LOUD sound of a jet engine appears, followed by the change that shows a jet airline that is about to land.
I think the most jarring aspect of this particular transition is that as far as I can see, there was no prior mention of a vampire caught in the base. Combine that with the first panel starting mid sentence and it makes I hard to tell what’s going on. Though the previous page makes a little more sense with this new context though. Initially I had thought she was eager for the day to be done.
I think what could’ve been done was to maybe have someone notify Sydney to meet Maxima after class on the previous page. That way we have a lead in to this new scene. The abrupt start can easily be seen as them having been just standing around waiting. This is assuming Sydney knew about the vampire in the base ahead of time.
If she didn’t know, changing the subject of the first panel to maxima explaining that they caught the vampire in the base would establish the scene well enough.
Doubt Sydney’s rant to the Sky Jerk had anything to do with this page
Its Sydney,If we looked for meaning in all of her rants wed have more random theorys than a 1000 series of lost.
you could have had a window to the night sky in the background of panel one.
That’s actually a really good point. Context clues, such as lighting, props (full coffee pot in one scene, empty in another…), changes in outfits, clocks… All of those sorts of things are a good way of letting the reader know that time has passed- even if it’s something they only pick up subconsciously.
Something else to consider is adding in those ‘transition panels’ for print versions.
Could probably be fixed with a couple of panels.
1: Syd looking bored in a class, alarm goes off,
…..1.5(inset panel)Syd: “Woohoo! Prayer works!”.
2: Syd: “What’s going on?” Other arc member, listening to alarm “Perimeter alert, intruder already neutralized” Syd: “Then why the alert?” OAM: “In case that intruder was meant to distract from a real intrusion/assault.”
P.S. There is a duplicate to this post, I know, but I’d replied to the wrong post in that one.
Now THAT wouldve been awesome!Simple to do too =).
How about the scene where the vampire tried to sneak in and was… incapacitated? That would’ve made for an action-page, but also a transition-page.
Panel 1-3: vampire attempting to enter, and being thwarted. Panel 4: Max being informed of the invasion. Final panel: vampire bat passed out as seen in Panel 2 of today’s comic. Something like that.
Was there a scene where the vampire was caught trying to sneak in? Because I feel like that would’ve helped–or a brief flashback panel to help orient us? This issue confused me because I thought maybe she was the bats we saw escaping the hideout, and I wondered how she got caught when she seemed to have gotten away.
Like you wouldn’t start a comic book issue with Catwoman being held captain in the Justice League HQ with Superman going “Why were you trying to infiltrate the Watchtower?” You’d actually see Catwoman attempting to break in, and then getting caught.
Well if you know you are going to be skipping a few boring scenes to get to others. You could put a time of day in the first panel. So the break happened at 1615. Jump to here and it says 1700 or the like.
I have seen webcomics, well one in particular that I won’t name since it might just be my opinion, that handles time skips much, much worse.
It would be interesting to put a date and time stamp in the upper left-hand corner. I’ve seen that done in some TV dramas, especially military and/or crime dramas. I think Law & Order used a variant of that, maybe a few others.
Just have something like – Tuesday 9:30 PM
Can’t remember L&O (it’s ben a few years, a decade{?} since last watched that) but SVU (which is a spin-off) uses a blackscreen with the details of the new scene (location and time of date), but doubt we want that if it means we have to wait an entire update for the next scene :P
There was a movie that used time references like “Later that day, 1842”, and “Teatime, 1843”. I think it was the “Corsican Brothers”, or “Start the Revolution Without Me.”, or some such historical spoof.
The last page was setting up for a scene transition but, this page starts at the end of the conversation and it feels like the audience(me) is missing something(*page back* nope… didn’t miss an update).
The setup for the new scene could be done in… two horizontal panels or a couple smaller boxes(artists choice.
TOP PANEL
Voice one:”Hey, The system is detecting movement in * (the vents/the restricted area).”
Voice Two:”Release the sleep gas! I’m winning the betting pool tonight! C’mon raccoon!”
Voice one:”It’s not a raccoon, smart money is on that lost spider, you know that blue one.” (lol setup for a future horrible thing)
Voice Two:”Either way it ends tonight! Call security, it’s gotta be on record!”
Second panel.
*drawn out conversation about potential tests for them to start trying with Sydney’s air orb. mostly about the composition of “air” and the potential of her producing pure versions of each element.*
Maxima(being interrupted by communicator): “…Hold up Sydney. This is Maxima. Report.”
*new text bubble on other side of the two(demarking the time and change of conversation.)
Maxima: “Alright, take her…them to lab four, I’ll be there shortly.” To Sydney “Want to see some bats?”
Then your stuff. +/- the last two panels, as the reaction shot from Sydney and Maxima is pretty funny.(but I don’t know how well it’d mix with the following comic.
We don’t need full page setups unless it’s insanely important. Heck, something as simple as two narrow panels with bats flying down a hall or vent and then being gasses in the second panel would be minimalist but fine, we don’t need details of the infiltration.
Hmmm… I forgot that “” were used in this comment section…
Panel one : displays and buttons, hands working them
Panel two: maxima and sydey, but maxima has her hand to her throat communicator.
With my own comic (which no one reads, so ignore me if you want, Dave) I have ridiculous questions related to the comic followed by ‘stay tuned’.
Like if a storyline started but wasn’t made clear, or a knicknack was placed somewhere obvious, or something, it might be referenced. Example:
“Will Eugene learn the significance of his new artifact? Will Bander get to eat in peace? Did the R.O.U.S. escape and multiply? Find out in the next episode, so STAY TUNED!”
I rarely have the next comic answer any of the previous questions. Beginning of chapters is usually “the next morning” or “a few days later, after Eugene gets off work”.
Well this one certainly would benefit from just from a box that said “Later that evening.” and/or a page consisting of a montage of Sydney’s boring day ending with the bats. Mainly it just needs something more to connect the events and give us the readers a visible timeline then just “and now vampires.”
Even on a few other pages prior something like “A couple days later.” would’ve helped establish a passage of time from the previous page/events. As the reader we don’t have this awareness what time or even day it is, and while we don’t need it in detail it is nice to know we aren’t on the same day and mundane progression has happened especially when a sudden major scene transition is involved.
On a side note however, part of this confusion is due to the web comic format. As an actual Comic this could’ve opened an issue while the previous page would’ve ended one and it would’ve done okay.
As an afterthought suggestion on the side note: a cover art page would’ve been a good link between pages as well to make it feel like a different issue/chapter.
Yeah I’d like to do chapter splash pages, but for a lack of time, and I don’t know how I’d feel about posting just that in place of a regular comic.
I would be happy to have the chapter splash page, instead of a regular update. It is not like they come around often. Plus seeing whatever subject you pick, writ large, would be interesting in its own right.
Me, too, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wO8toxinoc
+1
Provided that take less effort than a regular comic page and not more.
You certainly don’t seem to chapter hop enough for an occasional splash page to be problematic. Certainly after a page that doesn’t leave us hanging on to what happens next like the last page. Now if you did it right in mid super fight, then yeah that’d be annoying.
You going to be okay with waiting an extra week for the new page? Yeah, didn’t think so
I am a patient person so……yes, I am okay with waiting.
Speaking of which, what chapter are we in again?
This one.
As in this is the first page of the new chapter. The previous page was the last page of the last chapter.
One Yorp-ie treat for you. Tosses the trear at Yorp.
Yay! Yummy yummy!
I think it is the leading “…” ellipsis that really threw off this jump cut.
*…continuing from an earlier strip, that you missed. But when you click back or flip the page back (whenever hard copy) you don’t have the leading part. For me, with the last few pages, I am remaining myself this is a “Slice of Life”. We as the audience tend to skip forward to the next “Slice” and miss all the in-between. Like someone looking through an unstable time portal, there is no context between jumps.
I’m not sure a visual language queue is needed (such as the Anime skyline). It was just this jump with the “…” , and the prior pages indication that Sydney was going back inside. All the prior cuts were Outside Inside, and just pure cuts. Really I think it was “…” + “Anticipation of Sydney being inside next”, that made it feel off kilter. Also the “inside” was likely not different enough from want people were expecting to see. If it had been to the bathroom or Leon’s Server Nook, it wouldn’t have been as noticeable.
*[You think it’s…]
But if you feel you need to start making a “this is clearly a time jump” visual…
What about using the ball room (that Sydney was interviewed in)? It’s both long (for a horizontal insert) and has tall windows (for vertical inserts). Has it been established what face of the building its one? If not, if it were South Facing it could act as a sundial. With the shadows of the Window frames tracking across the floor, tracking left to right. For use on this page, a horizontal insert just above Max’s speech bubble mostly showing floor. The last few pages haven’t needed it because they’ve had Sky available, and enough change in wardrobe to clearly indicate time jumps.
If the Ball room doesn’t work, what about making it some’s South-facing office? Laid out in such a way that even sliced up horizontal or vertical the Audience will get to know it and be able to read it like a sundial. Could be Max’s office, maybe Arianna’s, or Hiro’s? All three strike me as people always on the move and never actually in their offices overly long. For gags I’d say Arianna’s, as I could see her office being a rotating display of Merchandising samples, and other PR nicknacks (like a Math body pillow for a single insert). For ease on the artist, likely Max or Hiro’s.
I’d say you should try doing scene changes in the span of the same page, and if you don’t, then use an establishing shot or something. Having, say, the final panel in one page set up the scene transition clues the reader in on what’s to come and doesn’t make them feel like they missed a page.
I’d really suggest a bit of narrator text at the top, just “a few days later” or “later that evening” or whatever. It’s not super creative or artistic, but it’s clear and gets the job done.
Spongebob has you, and anyone else, covered:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgxK5vm6lvk
The last page seemed to be completely pointless and boring. Just as boring as instructions on how to write an after-action report.
This page wrapped it all together nicely. And we really didn’t need 5 pages showing Scarlet attempting to sneak in and getting zapped with whatever non-lethal zappage put her under until sunset. (I will admit to being curious as to what knocks out a vampire. Sun lamps? Garlic breath? Listening to a Hitchens debate opponent?)
My suggestion would be to not use an entire update for the “time is passing” explanation. The second panel of the last update would have sufficed to establish that they are waiting for sundown for some reason. Or panels 1-3 at most, but without an entire update in between the second one should be enough to deliver the message*. Tack that panel onto the front of this one and you’ve done the job well while also not spent an entire update doing it.
* Also at fault is the serial nature of the comic. If read in a couple months time without the delay between updates the last page won’t seem as out of place. Although it will still be a fairly wasted page.
Well, it would really help if important plot elements don’t get introduced during the missing time (like this vampire), that really contributes the audience feeling like they missed something.
Could show with the sun sun setting/moon rising to indicate passage of time. Or use a clock to show it’s later in the day. Or a streetlight turning on outside. Many, many possibilities.
But in this case I think the caption box was a good choice.
Me too. Had to check that I didn’t miss an update.
Could probably be fixed with a couple of panels.
1: Syd looking bored in a class, alarm goes off,
…..1.5(inset panel)Syd: “Woohoo! Prayer works!”.
2: Syd: “What’s going on?” Other arc member, listening to alarm “Perimeter alert, intruder already neutralized” Syd: “Then why the alert?” OAM: “In case that intruder was meant to distract from a real intrusion/assault.”
Sydney’s currently getting what almost everyone, regardless of sexuality or existence of sex drive, wants. A face fulla Maxima Cleavage!
Sydney is getting a face full of sideboob. Not cleavage.
Still effective in silencing even a motormouth like Sydney. Quite a effective sideboob I say.
Sideboob is half of cleavage. Like a knife is half of scissors, but softer and drifts off into
Sideboob, like sharp edge on a half of scissors, the armpit is still right there, threatening.
Since Supers don’t have undesired hair, I doubt they have BO.
Unless they have BO powers, or hair-related powers (Bobobo Bo Bobo)
Hair is not the cause of BO, it’s the sweat, and even those uncouth enough to shave still sweat and wear tops that trap the sweat
Viirin‘s point is that supers are idealised, and was just citing an example. Their pretty/handsome faces, automatic fitness and well endowed physiques being others. It is logical, to the point of being highly probable, that they do not suffer unduly from B.O.
I imagine they would get just as sweaty and stinky like anyone else, if exerting themselves (by their standards, of course) or in hot conditions. But would probably be on the ‘actually that is not too bad’ end of the scale. Or ‘mmm, macho’, where appropriate.
Those responses are more to do with the other party (ie, the one who is forced to smell their armpits) than the ones emitting the BO
But they do fart, so I imagine that other bodily gasses can exist as well.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1809
See other comics do not cover the things that curious minds really want to know about supers.
Isn’t cleavage only the center? That’s absolutely side boob like RobK said.
Who care? Everybody still wants it
Sydney is actually getting the lower half of her face full of Maxima hand. The upper half gets side-boob.
My first thought at that panel was ‘Dabbler is going to be so jealous (again)’. Sydney gets all the good perks.
My first thought was, “Wow! Maxima sure has this universe’s equivalent of boobs of steel. They don’t look like the gave at the side-boob.”
She probably reflexively ups her Defense stat when she does this kind of grab, just to prevent others from enjoying it too much. With Dabbler AND Math on the team, she’s probably learned not to give free pillow-hugs.
Come to think of it, that last panel might just summon Dabbler via Pornosense
I want a face fulla Sydney Cleavage!
Ahh, the aspirational model. A true connoisseur.
You are not the only one. 8^D
Mind the sharp corners.
I lizard after my own woofie-smoofums.
I was reading through the comments to see if anyone would get here… I saw that and thought… Oh noes… Max resorted to the Boob Gag. Double entendre… Boob gag… get it? As in a Boob joke, or more literally in this case, a Boob Gag, stopping Syd from talking… LOL
[drumroll]
That would be enough to make Math jump right off from his newly-trained disciplining exercises…
:P
Grammar question : Shouldn’t Maxima be saying “Why were you trying to sneak into the base” instead of “Why you were etc.” ?
Also, I agree, the transition was a tad brutal there :)
No, it’s correct.
The sentence is: The question are are going to answer is: Why you were sneaking in…
The question of why you were doing that.
Why you were is right,
If max just asked the question with the lead in sentence then it would be “why were you”
A similar lead in would be asking a list of questions e.g. I want to know:- Why you were….
What you were….
It does sound a little off at first but it does work
The word ‘answer’ should have been followed by a colon, not a period. It’s a punctuation error, not a grammatical one.
It’s a speech error; to the dismay of every washed out Literature Major who became a High School English teacher: people don’t talk proper in real life!!!
Time to enroll Maxima in the school for kids who can’t talk good and want to do other things good too!
Dat’s no sertin thing, ya’ no. I hav gradiated hi scool ‘n sum collij ‘n this iz best I kin rite. USAPubik edamakashun, indeeed!
;)
Im Maximas defence its not her fault her english teacher was too scared of the girl who can throw kameahmehas to ever correct her lol
whachu tahkin bout willis
There ain’t no such thing as talkin’ proper!
That totally depends on the writing style. Some formal writing styles use wildly different punctuation. Also; You can do, what ever u want in your own – informal – style. as long as the reader can understand you.
…except use the letter U in place of the word You. Unless you’re seven or your name is Prince.
https://youtu.be/8Gv0H-vPoDc?t=1m50s
It is never proper grammar and people certainly won’t imagine anyone talking that way.
And autocorrect on my wife’s phone knows that “u” is not a word – and changes it to “I”.
(Or did, until I got into the settings and turned autocorrect off.)
Did you know that people don’t think in punctuation or capitalization
Did you know that every generalization is incorrect?
Then I’m not people.
Did anyone tab back to see if they missed a page? Because holy crap this confused me at first.
Yes. Yes we did and yes it was.
Curse you, in media res segue.
Are you objecting to the Author skipping a few hours ahead when
It’s been several years to cover a few days ?
No. We’re objecting to ‘stare at the sky’ turning instantly into ‘staring at unconscious bats we have no idea how or even why it shifted there’.
Yeah I have to agree there. Does feel like some rather necessary setup/transition was skipped over here.
I would guess that the blanks will be filled, in apropriate time. Author just chose diffent presentation this time.
She was waiting for the sky to get dark so that their batty captive would wake up. Most likely caught the night before.
My first thought was that it was someone’s lunch being prepared.
To be fair Sidney does mention both vampire hijinks and wanting to fast forward over the boring classes on the previous page.
It just wasn’t immediately obvious that was lamp-shading an actual fast forward to vampire hijinks.
I feel cheated out of the three months that the class should have taken.
Just wait until they get to less-lethal weapons class. That should take a few pages.
No! I want 6 months on a class on paperwork and to fill out the insurance forms for property damage.
An explanation on how to write incident reports without including opinions!
Yes, that too! And a sub-course on proper collating. Give the readers what they REALLY want, DaveB! It’s time for the REAL behind-the-scenes of superheroing! :)
Whatever studying you may be doing, in your spare time, I think you need a break from it. At least a week. Get in some good beach time. And no taking day-job work with you.
In fact no electronic devices, except for an hour on update days!
YES!
I like a progression with short, obvious amounts of time between pages much, much better than jumps between pages. It… “hurts the continuous flow of time”, I mean, it would be optimal if less times passes between pages than on pages. Sure, it’s waiting time from one new page to the next new page, but once the pages are done and ready for viewing, the production-time isn’t noticeable anymore. No one notices that one day in comic time needed more than 5 years to make them after the 5+ years have passed and all pages are visible – if they only look at the pages and not the release dates.
This was something I loved about this web comic and now this continuity seems to be gone :-(
With so many people complaining about “unnecessary fluff” and “scenes dragging on for far too long”, it surprises you that DaveB decided to pick up the pace?
Will repeat from have been saying from the beginning: people will bitch about anything concerning time with this webic, be it how long is spent on combat, or lack of combat, or skipping time altogether
It’s just a jump to the left…
And then a step to the ri-i-i-i-i-iight.
Put your hands on your hips!
And pull your knees in Ti-i-ight
But its the pelvic thru-u-ust
That really drives them insa-a-a-a-a-ane
LET’S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN!!!!
Sorry guys… couldn’t resist!
I now suddenly know what I want to see if Archon ever does a halloween party thanks to this!
What about the Twilight Council?
Do they all get dressed up as axe-wielding woodsmen and villagers, with burning torches? Should Sydney set up a concession stand there, selling Van Helsing, Rippley and Blade costumes? Would exorcism kits be a good seller?
If you arent a fan of the Rocky Horror Picture show then we have nothing to discuss so good day to you!*Salutes*
Though I will say that in what I want to see stars Math as Dr Frankenfurter! XD
I have attended more than one late night audience participation Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I even know when to fire the water pistols and chant out “Asshole”!
Although I have never felt the urge to turn up just wearing ladies lingerie, but it amuses me when Gen Con UK convention goers did used to.
Ah then maybe youre alright after all and you just misinterpreted me.Nice to see a fellow fan.
It doesn’t surprise me and I understand why it’s done, also I guess that I’m alone or in a very small minority. But still, I liked it better as it was before than as it is now.
And would you – or anybody – disagree with my reasoning?
I think the problem isn’t the time skip. It’s that we start with something we have no reason to understand or expect, and which looks like it SHOULD be expected. Typically, this kind of scene would at least be accompanied by a panel with somebody explaining that they had a swarm of bats fly in unexpectedly and blah blah happened to make them unconscious.
As it is, it opens up with Maxima discussing knock-out gas, but we have little idea why, whether she’s talking about base defenses or Halo powers (even in potentia) and we have unconscious bats. In Medeis Res opens on unexplained action, where you can at least tell what the IMMEDIATE concern is. Also, it OPENS on it with a clear opening.
So…this transition needs work, I think. Probably not a whole extra comic page, but it needs to open a little earlier or it needs a brief set-up scene. It’ll probably clear up with the next comic or two, but…
Yes, I did. Then I compared the #’s to see if one had been dropped somehow.
This page would benefit from a little square narration box at the very top. Something along the lines of: “And a few hours later something did…”
Ooh, ooh. Or even a squirrel narration box (when Sydney is too preoccupied to do the task, needless to say).
Obviously only good squirrels need audition. We would not want the evil squirrel overlord as our narrator!
I dunno I think the evil squirrel overlord narrating would sound hilarious XD
Same here,This was a bit of a necksnapper of a scenechange which couldve used some foreshadowing to explain Syds spazzing in the last page.
So you wanted a page of foreshadowing, that Sydney was going to do a page of foreshadowing that the scene would cut to night time?…
…. oookay.
Using Sydney being a spazz as a guide to imply something important has happened offscreen and is about to be addressed at a specific time is pointless because lately shes been 96% spazz 330 hours a day. Real forshadowing would be a security alert or Maxima getting a message that a vampire got caught trying to bipass Archon security or even just someone saying they have a possible lead for the whole murdergolem thing but they need to wait til sunrise to follow it up.Goddamn if I can come up with better ideas than Syd being Syd then anyone can do better.
sunset even-typing after work is fun!
So you want the protagonist to cease to behave consistently?
We may need to take away your backseat driver’s licence. Your boringly conventional direction lacks the stunt driving which makes this comic so enjoyable. Even though such comes with the risk that sometimes it may stall.
But Dave is talented enough a driver to make sure that only happens in a scenic spot, with interesting things going on. And keeps the momentum going, despite that, like on this page.
This is less to do with the protagonists actions and more to do with a random yet extremely important event happening off screen and not being even mentioned until the plot needed it-let me correct myself AFTER the plot needed it.Even Dave acknowledged the scene jump caused a fair bit of confusion and even minorly edited the comic over it to make things a bit smoother.
Its like watching a murder mystery where the case is at a dead end with no evidence or witnesses and the detective randomly is shown yelling at the clock to move faster followed by a scene where hes interrogating a suspected murderer who was caught by him handling vital evidence in a completely off screen scene.
That, sounds like the vast majority of ‘modern’ mystery shows: they have five red herrings (or ‘potential suspects’), someone on the team finds something, hands it to the lead dick who studies it for a second, then exclaims that they know who did it (without showing the audience this final piece of evidence), and then they rush off to where a few of the Herrings have been netted (with a couple others who were briefly screened and ruled out), glares at the number one suspect as they relay what happened, and at the last minute turns to one of the ruled out parties and exposes them as the guilty one and only then tosses the vital clue on a table so every one else (namely the audience) can go “Of course! It all makes sense now!”
And yet it turned out to be amazingly simple to piece together what had actually happened. Like any detective story there were various clues. The most obvious being a sleeping/unconscious vampire. Plus Maxima’s initial dialogue provides both a clue and a red herring. Plus Dave did have a nice twist on the means, that nobody predicted exactly.
The only bit that could not be inferred was the reason why Crimson was there, in the first place. Which is what this scene is actually addressing.
Now that Dave has fixed the confusion over the time-jump issue, anyone catching up on their reading, or new readers, will be able to focus on the former aspect. With that modification what remains is an interesting narrative device. Making audiences think is a good change of pace, that I approve of.
Plus you need to take into account the personalities and normal behaviour of the characters. Complaining that you could not piece the missing scene together, simply because the protagonist was behaving in her usual manner, indicates that you are failing to do that.
Nope. And the reason that I didn’t is because I favorited the Archive Page. I hit there first before I hit the comic pages. A quick reference of the dates there, and a remembering of the last time I had visited the site and I knew where to click to read the most current comic(s).
Why is Crimson there anyway to begin with???
That’s the question yes.
That is exactly what Maxima is asking in the last panel.
Perhaps Crimson is there to check on Krona,out of concern for the council???
There are other ways to do that, specially seeing how Kronachrome was not being held against her will, and probably already went home
As far as the law would be concerned, she was being held against her will (since no crime had been committed by her) and the torts of wrongful detention and false imprisonment (which is also a crime) when held for more than a few hours depending on the jurisdiction, but I do agree that Crimson was probably not there because of that.
She was requested to return to ARC-HQ and then spent time with Dabbles, there has been zero, nada, zilch indication she was held against her will nor wrongfully detained or false imprisonment, except in the demented minds of idiots
And remember, Maxi said she was going to let the Council know where Kronachrome was, and why
These words you keep using. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
Maxima: “After I unlawfully detain and interrogate you, I’ll be sure to let the Council know the crime I’ve committed. That makes it legal, right?”
Everyone else except idiots: “No.”
You’re the special kind of idiot who thinks that Trump specifically explaining in an interview that he fired Comey for not dropping the Russia investigation makes it all fine somehow.
Dumb cop: “Well, he told us why he robbed that bank. I guess we have to let him go now, right?”
Everyone else except idiots: “No.”
See? That’s the point, only special kinds of idiots even viewed what Maxi did that way
Maxi is not the most diplomatic of speakers, so she was a little forceful in her request, but Kronachrome just admitted to not knowing what she did, or the repercussions of, when it came to her ‘save point’ stunt, and that’s just the sort of thing Archon was created for, or is it okay because Kronachrome is a member of a super-secret organisation that the general public knows nothing about?
You’re such a talented arguer, to call people demented idiots when they are using the actual law while you’re using…. I haven no idea what logic you’re using… gut feelings I suppose.
That’s sarcasm by the way. Text is an impersonal medium and I’m concerned that you might not recognize the sarcasm in my tone. I actually think it’s very irritating that you call people idiots if they explain how the law actually works. And I think making insults at other people is the first sign that you’re a poor debater. Especially when they’re right and you’re wrong.
Archon was NOT created for ‘future crimes which are not even crimes in the first place’ any more than they would have had any right to detain the geokinetic. I’m not sure of the background of what happened there, but if they even tried to imply that he would be arrested, then Archon would be in violation of the Constitution (not to mention they would be sued up the wazoo and the public relations problems would give Arianna nightmares if they only had people like you to defend the actions taken).
In fact, the only saving grace FOR archon is that the ‘super secret organization that the general public knows nothing about’ IS the victim of Archon’s unconstitutional and illegal overreach in this case. That doesn’t mean what they’ve done is in any way legal though, just because the victim isn’t going to sue over it for fear of public notice.
Perfectly understand how the law works, calling people idiots (and not once have directed that and anyone in particular) for saying that Maxi kidnapped and forcibly detained Kronachrome, when there has been no evidence of that being the case
1) You clearly dont know how the law works or you would know that what I said is correct.
2) I did not say kidnapped. I said false imprisonment and unlawful detainment. They are different crimes (plus torts).
3) She most certainly did forcibly detain Krona as far as the law is concerned, which she should care about since she is essentially a cop (albeit under the auspices of the military). Krona is a civilian.
You are a lawyer, so you know how this works: prove it, any of what wild accusations you are slinging around
Maxima was not arresting Krona for ‘a future crime’. Krona had already recklessly endangered lives, by (as per her own account) altering time and the fact that she admitted it had not worked the way she planned indicated that she had been reckless/negligent.
As it was Krona chose to co-operate with police enquiries (i.e. assessing her power and finding out if her belief was correct) and voluntarily attend a retraining course. With Maxima making it clear that she would exercise the authority granted to her, if she did not.
In other words “We can arrest you for what you have done, or you can co-operate.”
Krona is a Federal agent (by virtue of being a Semper Vigilatis) so would follow this line of reasoning.
On top of which the Twilight Council quite clearly have their own laws, which predate the formation of the United State. Who have ceded a lot of authority to Archon, to enforce them, on their populations.
And similar arrangements have been made with U.S. governments, all the way back to Abraham Lincoln. So there are probably secret treaties establishing such jurisdiction, all nicely signed off by the Senate/Congress (at some point in history), hidden within some bill, and covering ‘extraordinary measures.
Some bit of legislation which is purposely never repealed and the powers that be make sure remains nicely obscure. Kept in paper form. We do know that the Archon formation bill gave them jurisdiction over ‘extraordinary matters’. Doubtless very carefully phrased to ensure that it incorporated the hypothetical treaty I propose.
I can’t see someone like Abe Lincoln failing to make such arrangements legal. Albeit that the secrecy was necessary as part of it.
“You are a lawyer, so you know how this works: prove it, any of what wild accusations you are slinging around”
Have you not been reading any of my posts? Every post I’ve been writing IS the proof. I’m literally just quoting the law from ANY basic first year Torts or Criminal Law class. The fact that you seem incapable of accepting it doesn’t make it suddenly not proof, just because you’re being willfully ignorant.
Yorp:
Sorry but now I have to take away your Yorpie snax, doggie. I might have to even withhold any tummy skritches.
“Maxima was not arresting Krona for ‘a future crime’.”
She was unlawfully detaining her and falsely imprisoning her for the threat of a possible future danger or wrongdoing, right after she said that Krona had done nothing wrong and had, in fact, saved Sydney’s life, and Maxima had on several other occasions stated that Archon’s official mandated policy was that it is not illegal to have superpowers. So she has NO reason to detain Krona at all. Not legally.
“Krona had already recklessly endangered lives, by (as per her own account) altering time and the fact that she admitted it had not worked the way she planned indicated that she had been reckless/negligent.”
Actually no, she hasn’t endangered any lives. In fact, she saved lives. You know who HAS endangered lives? Maxima. On multiple occasions. Starting with at the bank. Then in the ballroom. Then when testing Sydney’s shield on the firing range. Then at the press conference. Then during the training at the firing range. Then when she almost went up against Death Toll because she sooo wanted to show him that she was the toughest.
“As it was Krona chose to co-operate with police enquiries”
Agreement at gunpoint is not agreement.
“voluntarily attend a retraining course.”
Voluntary means no coercion. There was very clear coercion.
“With Maxima making it clear that she would exercise the authority granted to her, if she did not.”
That’s the thing. Maxima does NOT have the authority to do what she did. In fact, she’s outright stated in the past that it is not illegal to have superpowers if you’re not using them as a vigilante, which Krona was not doing – in fact she was using her powers under the auspices of an NGO group that is recognized by the US Government as legitimate and sovereign (and that predates the US, in fact).
“In other words “We can arrest you for what you have done,”
She did nothing. She committed no crime. You need to commit a crime in order to be arrested.
“or you can co-operate.””
You just showed that there was no voluntary consent. Do what I say, or you will go to the pound and be put to sleep. There. You can volunteer now to do what I say.
Not actually a choice, right?
“Krona is a Federal agent (by virtue of being a Semper Vigilatis)”
Krona is NOT a federal agent. In fact, she is with a group that predates the federal government, and that is an ally of the US government. For all intensive purposes, as far as Archon is concerned for any sort of arrests on US soil, she is a civilian. The only way Maxima would be doing something legal here, considering Krona has NOT COMMITTED ANY CRIME OR LEGAL WRONGDOING would be if Krona was under Maxima’s command (since military rules are more stringent than for civilians, since military doesnt get all the same rights as a civilian).
“On top of which the Twilight Council quite clearly have their own laws, which predate the formation of the United State. Who have ceded a lot of authority to Archon, to enforce them, on their populations.”
Actually the Council has NOT ceded any authority to Archon. Where did they cede authority to Archon? The Council had several pages where they describe to Sydney how they police their own people.
“And similar arrangements have been made with U.S. governments, all the way back to Abraham Lincoln.”
Seriously Yorp, where are you getting this from? I’ve re-read the pages and this is coming from nowhere.
“So there are probably secret treaties establishing such jurisdiction,”
Maxima literally admitted that the Council has already signed off on Krona’s powers and vetted her. Where is this treaty? You can’t just make up an imaginary treaty that hasnt EVER been even alluded to and use that as the basis for your argument.
“all nicely signed off by the Senate/Congress (at some point in history),”
Seriously where was this ever written anywhere in the story, or even alluded to? Or even said by DaveB in a blurb? It wasn’t. Anywhere.
“We do know that the Archon formation bill gave them jurisdiction over ‘extraordinary matters’.”
Yorp. please go back to the press conference where Maxima literally tells the press EXACTLY what Archon’s powers cover, then look at Maxima’s talk with the Council.
“Doubtless very carefully phrased to ensure that it incorporated the hypothetical treaty I propose.”
It is EXTREMELY convenient in a debate to claim an imaginary treaty which spells out all the requirements which you need, when it hasnt been written about, alluded to, or even Word of Godded in the comic.
“I can’t see someone like Abe Lincoln failing to make such arrangements legal.”
Seriously when did Abe Lincoln sign anything? Is this because he was a vampire hunter? Do you think a vampire hunter would have a treaty with the Council which allows the US government’s superhuman military team from 150 years in the future be allowed to take the Council’s people at will? No.
Not according to Pixel, based on Krona’s testimony. So Maxima is not acting solely on her own judgement (which is sufficient by the way) but has the advice of an expert on the supernatural. Somewhat out of her speciality admittedly, but as close as anybody that Maxima is likely to be able to consult with, in the field.
What is not appropriate, when informed that someone has endangered the universe is to take no action. Maxima weighed the advice, agreed with the assessment, and acted accordingly.
Which ends the issue. Maxima did what a cop is meant to do when a crime has been uncovered. I will however respond to other points you raised, as a matter of interest, even though they have no further relevance to the key issue.
Are you certain of that? That this Halo is the original, and not a copy? With the other one having been taken away by Sciona, with no hope of rescue, because no one realises that she and Pixel are copies.
It is if the person making the agreement is not concerned about that. You are making out that Krona was reacting out of fear. We have no indication of that.
Krona reacted like any good citizen when told that they have committed a crime. She acknowledged her fault and accepted the consequences. At no point then, or since, has Krona indicated that she was unhappy with Maxima’s assessment or proposed solution.
Besides which Krona is armed and more than capable of defeating Maxima. So your assertion of coercion fails on two fronts.
Yes she is, Ingsol indicated that he was selecting FBI agents (and/or their equivalents), for this mission:
Read back further. Arianna briefed the press (see final link below) that:
Further Ingsol advised that “A.R.C. worked with member races of the Council”. It is worth noting that this was in response to Sydney saying that they had been around for 200 years and Ingsol did not correct the point, but appeared to corroborate it.
There are two ways that this could have been done. Secretly and illegally (entirely plausible, this is America we are talking about). Or legally. I did the courtesy, under the presumption of innocence, of presenting a hypothesis which would allow this.
If though you do not wish to entertain such speculation, that is entirely your prerogative. My argument did not depend on it. i just got bored purely repeating arguments that we have gone over before.
And, yes, we did see an imagined Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter in the comic. Hence why he sprang to mind for my speculation. Especially as we have seen such imaginings actually reflecting facts elsewhere in the comic.
As you quoted though, I did indicate that the treaty was a hypothesis. But if you would rather indicate that Abraham Lincoln was a criminal, who covered up (or turned a blind eye to, or, at the other extreme, possibly even participated in) illegal arrests and/or killings of American werewolves and vampire citizens, then so be it.
When agencies of different jurisdictions decide on who will be leading the case (and thereby ceding authority to them, for purposes of the investigation) they indicate which will be the active organisation.
Any personnel from the other agency then get embedded in their team, and are answerable to that team’s leader, whilst on secondment. *
See the “Ingsol” link above.
* I have seen many documentaries on this, such as when they follow Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis or Clint Eastwood around on a case, so I am quite confident that this is how these matters are actually handled.
Okay Pander, let’s examine your, very lengthy, argument about a comic book universe and laws, shall we?
You say that Krona hasn’t endangered any lives, correct? How do you know that she hasn’t endangered any lives? Do you have any idea how Krona’s power work? Because the person that has the powers, that would be Krona, doesn’t fully understand how powers work, even after she had them examined by Dabbler and the others of Arc-light (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2536 ). To Krona’s own knowledge, at the time of the incident, she had not only endangered lives, she had endangered the time space continuum.
You stated that Maxima endangered lives at the bank. How did she endanger lives at the bank robbery when she is fast enough to catch the bullets if they were head for civilian targets, as she did when one of the robbers shot at Sydney. You stated that Maxima endangered lives in the ballroom, but how did she do so? She never used anything more than brute physical strength to test the strength of Sydney’s shield by punching the shield. It might have caused some physical harm, in the rupturing of eardrums, with the concussive force of her blows, but the windows would have blown out before anything life threatening would have happened. Or maybe you are referring to her attack on Dabbler after being sexually assaulted by the Succubus Alien (possibly a princess)? Again, only physical power, no flight, no energy beams, was used against a person that is one of only two people that have ever fought Maxima to a standstill (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/989). With Sydney at the firing Range? You mean when she had Sydney take every precaution that she could to avoid injury by putting on a bomb disposal suit, hiding behind a solid steel block before putting up her shield, that way they could test Sydney’s shield with something more than the love taps she gave at the briefing? (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1039). At the press conference? She only showed that much power because she knew that Sydney’s shield would be able to protect them after they had tested before the rest of the people arrived. (Maxima explaining herself: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1204). When Maxima was about to attack For Whom the Death Tolls? An enemy that nobody knew about and seemed to have every power in the book? The only person who figured out what his power was was Sydney who stopped Maxima from attacking and possibly causing a bigger incident. When the situation was explained to Maxima, she followed Sydney’s plan to defeat him as part of a team effort.(https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1471 and https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1476). At the firing range in the Archon head quarters? She was proving a point to Sydney, and her actions were explained by Peggy to the recruits after she had left. (Action here: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1758 and Explanation here: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1776)
Let’s examine your statements about Krona and Maxima and the whole debacle that has now spanned several comics because people are still butt hurt about it. You are right in stating that Maxima does not have the power to detain someone based on future crimes that they may or may not commit (enter Minority Report for arrests on future crimes). And you are right that Krona is not a Federal Agent of the US government. However, as she is not a federal agent, that makes her a civilian with super powers, that no one quite understands, who could have just possibly ended the universe as we know it, at best. At worst that would make Krona a foreign agent who endangered the universe as we know it. As a civilian Krona (I still think of this character as a she because I like to see in my head that Krona and Sydney become the best of friends for life.) Krona would be entitled to due process, a lawyer, a court appearance and a jury of her peers. As a foreign agent she could be tried as a spy, held indefinitely until it was time to trade Krona back to her government, usually in exchange for someone that the twilight counsel had captured, or for favors to repaid at a later date.
Now Maxima, as a Lt. Colonel in Arc-SWAT under the DoD (Department of Defense), has just been informed of a possible crime that may have been (please note the past tense) committed, and in order to understand what is fully going on, Maxima is asking, albeit in a forceful manner, that Krona accompany her to Archon so that everything can be sorted out. Maxima does in the same way that cops do this with suspects, i.e.: “You can come down to our precinct and answer some questions in a civilised manner, or we can arrest you, toss you into the holding cell, keep you there for at least 24-48 hours without charging you while we ask you our questions.” This is well within the scope of her powers as a federal officer of the law, as mandated by the Archon Charter. You assume that Maxima can’t arrest someone just because she is under the DoD. This is false as any Military Police officer that witness a crime is allowed to make an arrest. It is also wrong because under the powers that have been granted to Archon, they are allowed to arrest any super powered civilian that commits a crime. The only reason that all of the Supers that didn’t have warrants were released after the Diner Battle, is because of extenuating circumstances, namely Vehemence’s power to make people fight. Vehemence himself was indeed incarcerated and is currently being kept in a cell that has been specially designed for him, after the fact. Jabberwocky is currently on a work release program in Archon because she did indeed have outstanding warrants and they are trying something new because Super powered people are considered a national resource and treasure.
The guidelines of the Archon Charter are for dealing with Atypical and Extraordinary threats (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2506). Krona, and her possibly universe breaking power (even if it was later discovered that she couldn’t actually break the univers), would most definitely fall under this kind of threat.
Yes, I agree with the fact that it has never been stated that anything extra was hidden in past bills or published laws, there as never been anything in the comic that said there hasn’t been anything like that either. It only states that as far back as the Lincoln Presidency there have been private citizens assisting the US government with Extraordinary and Atypical challenges. (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/942) It has never been stated that in this FICTIONAL universe, American lawmakers didn’t slip extra stuff into the bills that they passed. And we don’t know how the US government has handled having the Twilight Counsel operating (which is more less like having another country in the exact same spot, which the US has never been particularly good at doing.)
Where are you getting the Abraham Lincoln was a vampire hunter in this universe? The one time that he has been shown, he was wielding an axe was in a thought bubble of Sydney’s during the press conference. Probably because she had read the book Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Which is, to my knowledge, a fictional novel in the Grrl Power Universe as well as the real universe that you and I live in. (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/942) No one stated that he was a Vampire Hunter. You assumed he was a vampire hunter. Yorp drew his own conclusions about what was said in the COMIC and what has been mostly historically accurate about President Lincoln’s strength of character, and how he would most likely try to deal with the threat when his country was trying to tear itself apart.
Yes, some leaps of faith are taken towards the end of Yorp’s statement, but nothing outside the realm of possibility since most civilians tend to not read the entirety of the bills and laws that are past, or the bills and laws that are repealed and dismissed. Not even your average lawyer would be able to tell you everything that goes into the bills and laws.
If you feel that I missed something, or that I am wrong about something, please feel free to let me know, and if you do try to use something as vague as The Law States as part of your argument, please feel free to share the line and verse of the law inside of this fictional universe that helps prove, or disprove your argument.
Thank you and have a nice day.
Nope all Maxima did was thank Krona.
This is a polite thing to do. But saving two lives does not justify risking everybody else’s in the universe. That part had already been established in the previous conversation with Pixel. So there was no need for Dave to have Maxima repeat those parts verbatim.
Rather it was summarised by Maxima’s “You might be able to shatter reality”. So whilst you are fixating on this being in the future tense, it is also (unstated) referring back to the previous incident.
That page already had a heck of a lot of white in it. So it was appropriate for him to keep the dialogue short. It would only be necessary for her to explicitly state the prior crimes if Krona had proven to be reluctant. She was not, so the scene moved on.
She was. As per the “Ingsol” link above.
Incidentally, to save the next bit,* where you claim that there must be a specific law broken, if you remembered my previous replies you would already know that there are numerous crimes she has committed. Most by means of reckless endangerment, in various flavours.
One example being obstruction of a police investigation. Not just the one they are involved in mind. Every single one in the United States.
Had Krona been correctly stating her capabilities she was endangering putting every cop into a time loop, which would prevent them from ever concluding any investigation.
However even if you decide that endangerment cannot be applied. there is one very specific crime that Krona has committed. She wiped the memories of PIxel. So Pixel will not be able to testify as to what Sciona’s involvement in her predicament was, or how she ended up in the situation that Sydney saw (and can recall).
Further Krona did this without Pixel, Sydney or Harem’s concent. Knowing full well that memory loss would occur if the power was activated.
Yes that may have saved their lives. Or it may have prevented Halo from countering the attack, the same way that she managed with Shadow Boxer. Maxima was gracious enough to assume the former.
That said though, Krona could have explained the checkpoints powers and drawbacks, in advance of activating it. It is not like a parry or dodge that is used reactively. It is a proactive power set up in advance.
So Krona could have sought permission from those involved to take the risk (to themselves) and to get authorisation from the team leader to risk a time-loop. She chose not to.
Memories are laid down as physical pathways in the brain. Krona’s actions have erased those. As this was done without permission, and under circumstances when such could easily have been obtained, prior to the event, this constitutes assault.
Which is a crime.
* We are going round in a time loop here, so I know your next argument. Fortunately the comments pages record all of our loops, so just go back and find the previous discussion to confirm this.
What you are doing Pander, is leading a witchhunt prosecution towards Maxi, without any proof of Maxi performing a crime
Yes, everything you have stated is covered by the law, but what you have failed, blatantly and repeatedly, is prove that there is a case to answer for in the first place!
There’s absolutely no way I can respond to each person’s lengthy posts here, although I disagree wholeheartedly with each of your posts, given that they all seem to rely on things which are NOT stated in the comic, or using a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ method of thinking which goes against the very concepts of justice in the US (and the mandate of Archon). I’ll respond directly to Guesticus though, since he tends to just attack with insults or by ignoring everything I write then saying that I’m making a witchhunt on the fictional character, usually with a brief post (thankfully).
Guesticus, the whole point of my lengthy post was to show that there IS a case to be answered for in the first place. The fact that you don’t bother to read my posts before responding to them is your problem, not mine. The fact that you call people idiots if they disagree with you or tell them that they can shove the law up their ‘arse’ (are you British or Australian or something, or do you think that’s not as bad as saying ass?) doesn’t make you sound remotely well-spoken or right.
Pixel’s comments were stated in the comic. Maxima’s then reiterated them. Stop getting your knickers in a twist that Maxima spoke in the future tense, she had to pick one or the other, as English does not allow both. Not when trying to keep the dialogue brief.
Maxima had to both deal with her team leader’s assessment of the previous incident and the ongoing safety of the universe. Of which the latter is the greatest priority, when selecting the tense and how to concisely summarise the complex issues.
There simply would not be the room to detail her grounds,* in addition to pointing out the ongoing danger, without going into another comic page. That though was not necessary, as her grounds were self-evident. You are just choosing to ignore them to further your argument.
Plus your generalisation ignores the fact that I both cited dialogue from the comic verbatim and provided links to each key point. So it is very unfair to say that I was relying on things not in the comic.
Finally I certainly was not working on the assumption of ‘guilty until proven innocent’. I have only been arguing that a cop has the right to insist that somebody help them with their inquiries.
You insisted that Maxima can only do that if there are credible grounds that a crime has been committed. Well they have been committed, and I argued that accordingly.
* For insisting. Note that no arrest has been made.
Plus bear in mind that Archon’s remit is to keep America safe from extraordinary threats. Being insistent that someone gets training, to stop using their power unsafely, is well within the scope of that.
In this context Maxima is acting like an industry regulator insisting that an individual comply with health and safety rules. Which, to all intents and purposes, is what Maxima is doing, in addition to her role as a cop.
Guesticus said:
No, you do not. You clearly do not. Or you would not be arguing the wrong side of it so vehemently.
Yorp said:
Guesticus said:
Bullshit. Maxima laid hands on Krona and informed her that she had zero options other than to accompany her to Archon HQ to be interrogated. That is an arrest or unlawful detainment. Take your pick, either one comes included with jackboots.
Maxima said:
I insist you return with us to the base.
…
Arc-light people are going to look over your code and get a handle on what you are capable of.
…
Don’t make me cuff you.
Your said:
More bullshit. The law varies from state to state, but in some states a citizen does not even need to provide their name to a police officer. In other providing your name is mandated. I’m not aware of any which mandate that you must answer any other questions at all. That is all part of that “right to remain silent” bit that you hear on every single cop show since forever. A cop or federal agent or other law enforcement official can certainly “insist that somebody help them with their inquiries,” and then that person can certainly tell them to get stuffed without any legal repercussions at all. Politely is probably the better choice for the delivery of the “get stuffed” message, but there is no law against being rude to a cop.
You are proving yourself to be just as clueless as Guesticus. You must be so proud.
You are quoting me out of context. I shall repeat it in full:
Yeaaaahhhhhhh lets not open that Pandoras box again,Maxima was on wierd legal ground when she essentially kidnapped a valuble asset whom was a member of a major allied organisation simply because her powers were deemed too valuable to archo- er mean too dangerous to be left out of Archons control…..Actually it would be kinda funny if our friendly neighbourhood vampire wasnt here as part of the main plot and was simply one of Kronas friends wanting to rescue her without bothering to get permission from the council first.
I’m guessing that the vampire isnt here for that, since I think this is a couple of days AFTER the super mannekin inicident, although I could be wrong there. Even if I am wrong there though, I’m pretty sure that since Krona’s already been released, one of the first things she would have done would have been to let the Council know that she’s been released, or at least Archon would have let them know that immediately given how much of a clusterf*** this would be for diplomatic relations with the Council.
Look, I’m just explaining the law here. What happened to her was an illegal detention and false imprisonment if she did not feel she had the freedom to leave, which she only did not feel, but she was told that in no small way by Maxima. It’s illegal because even Maxima outright implied that she didn’t commit a crime, yet they were still taking her in. You can’t just take in anyone and hold them for a suspicion that they might do something dangerous IN THE FUTURE. Given how much the comic has, in the past, paid attention to real life law consequences of a superhero team, it’s always seemed odd that they did something so unlawful here and no one called them on that. By the way, if it was UNDER two hours, precedents tend to show that’s still acceptable based on court cases in which security guards have held people who they thought were casing the place as a potential future shoplifter… but after 2 hours, the courts said it was false imprisonment, even though the door to the store office was open and they were not ‘under arrest.’
Look, I know the law, and this is BASIC stuff.
“She was requested to return to ARC-HQ and then spent time with Dabbles, there has been zero, nada, zilch indication she was held against her will nor wrongfully detained or false imprisonment, except in the demented minds of idiots”
And in the minds of anyone who’s gone to law school or EVER practiced law. Go on, keep calling me an idiot, You’re talking out of sheer ignorance.
Here. This is a simplified legal definition for false imprisonment. Maybe read it before running your mouth off and calling people demented idiots.
https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/false+imprisonment
I’ll even point to the most pertinent part – “False imprisonment often involves the use of physical force, but such force is not required. The threat of force or arrest, or a belief on the part of the person being restrained that force will be used, is sufficient. The restraint can also be imposed by physical barriers or through unreasonable duress imposed on the person being restrained. For example, suppose a shopper is in a room with a security guard, who is questioning her about items she may have taken from the store. If the guard makes statements leading the shopper to believe that she could face arrest if she attempts to leave, the shopper may have a reasonable belief that she is being restrained from leaving, even if no actual force or physical barriers are being used to restrain her.”
But hey, go on and keep calling people demented idiots with your non-existent knowledge of law. It’s cool.
“And remember, Maxi said she was going to let the Council know where Kronachrome was, and why”
Doesn’t matter. It’s still false imprisonment. If I tell you you’re not under arrest or guilty of any crime and I’m not detaining you because of anything you’ve DONE, just what you might do, so you have to come with me, tell you I ‘INSIST’ you are coming with me and it’s not an option…. then say ‘By the way, I’ll tell your family where you are.’…. that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve just illegally detained you.
Wait wait wait.
I didn’t participate last time, so forgive me if I’m a little confused by your argument.
For the sake of argument, let us say magic shenangins. I have a glass orb, I throw it up in the air in my yard. There is a massive flash of light and a burned patch of grass. No one was hurt, no crime committed, ect.
The police come and say “Hey, that wasn’t supposed to happen was it. How about you come with us down to the station and talk about what the hell that was with our crazy magic expert”
No matter what I choose at this point it is false imprisonment?
Because, I can totally believe that saying no could lead to consequences, perhaps even my arrest or being charged down the line. In fact, even the fact that I agree with the cops that doing what they say is perhaps the smartest option does not matter under the logic you are displaying here. I did nothing wrong, the threat of arrest is possible, hell the fact that the cops are clearly armed when they talk to me could be an implied threat of force, and so I am being falsely imprisoned.
I don’t think it works that way. There has to be something else involved for you to have a solid case here, otherwise any time the police talk to someone who hasn’t committed a crime they are toeing that line, and that is too extreme a limit.
But, I think there is a more important aspect here. Krona herself did not believe she was under false imprisonment. She agreed with Maxima that talking things out with Dabbler was probably the right move. Even if Maxima technically broke the law, if the person she “harmed” in the breaking of that law agrees with her actions, the case is closed and people move on to more important things.
Just like you can choose whether or not to press assault charges in the vast majority of cases, Krona has the right to not press charges for a technicality.
“I didn’t participate last time, so forgive me if I’m a little confused by your argument.”
My arguments are just what would be taught in the first year of law school in any basic Torts or Criminal Law courses, actually :) And since DaveB had made it clear that this comic does use ‘real world legalities’ as it pertains to comic book superpowers (ie, like he did with the Posse Comitatus Act and how he in-character shows how they get around that part, or how Maxima discusses collateral damage costs with Sydney), that’s why I bring this up.
“For the sake of argument, let us say magic shenangins. I have a glass orb, I throw it up in the air in my yard. There is a massive flash of light and a burned patch of grass. No one was hurt, no crime committed, ect.”
Your yard? No crime. Not even the burnt grass.
“The police come and say “Hey, that wasn’t supposed to happen was it. How about you come with us down to the station and talk about what the hell that was with our crazy magic expert””
If the police have a reasonable suspicion that a crime MIGHT have been committed, they can hold you for up to 24 hours… or 36-96 hours if you’re suspected of a serious crime, like murder. They can’t hold you for any time if you arent suspected of any crime, which Krona was NOT – even based on Maxima’s own words to Krona.
You can say no, I don’t want to go. If they put their hands on you and say, however ‘We insist you come with us’ or make you feel that you have no choice, and you go with them because you have no choice to say no, then yes, you have a case of false imprisonment.
“No matter what I choose at this point it is false imprisonment?”
Depends on the police reasoning. If they think you might do something dangerous in the future, but don’t think you’ve done any crime at all, then yes, it’s false imprisonment. If they suspect that you commited a crime of any sort, they can hold you for 24 hours. They can’t hold you because they think you might commit a crime in the future with no evidence, any more than police can come into your yard while you’re cooking at a barbecue because you have a fire there, by saying they think you might one day use the lighter fluid to commit arson.
“Because, I can totally believe that saying no could lead to consequences, perhaps even my arrest or being charged down the line. In fact, even the fact that I agree with the cops that doing what they say is perhaps the smartest option does not matter under the logic you are displaying here. I did nothing wrong, the threat of arrest is possible, hell the fact that the cops are clearly armed when they talk to me could be an implied threat of force, and so I am being falsely imprisoned. I don’t think it works that way.”
Actually yes, it does work that way if there’s no crime involved. Police can’t just pick you up when you’re not even suspected of a crime. Which Krona was not. If you feel you cannot leave, and go down, you’re under duress. The example I gave of a person who is in an office after being put there by a security guard, with an open door, where they don’t leave – that’s an actual case – and in that case the courts determined it was still false imprisonment. Normally, there are certain legal privileges which can be used to allow a limited detainment, such as the police privilege (which REQUIRES the police to believe that a crime has been committed or there’s probable cause that the person has engaged in wrongdoing, both of which do not apply with Krona based on Maxima’s own statements), or the Shopkeeper’s Privilege (which allows a reasonable detainment period of not more than 2 hours in order to verify ID or make a reasonable request as to whether the suspected shoplifter purchased the murchandise, or to hold them until the police can arrive).
The scenario for Maxima and Krona do not fit either privilege, and the idea that Krona was voluntarily consenting is easily challenged by the fact that she was told, in no uncertain terms, that she did not have the option to say no. That precludes ‘voluntary’ consent.
“There has to be something else involved for you to have a solid case here, otherwise any time the police talk to someone who hasn’t committed a crime they are toeing that line, and that is too extreme a limit.”
Read what I wrote above. I explain the police privilege, which does not fit what happened with Maxima and Krona.
“But, I think there is a more important aspect here. Krona herself did not believe she was under false imprisonment.”
Actually, she did. She believed she was imprisoned, insomuch that she did not have the option to say ‘no, I will not go with you’ without consequences that would be dangerous to her. That’s false imprisonment since there was no crime committed and she was not under probable cause of any legal wrongdoing. As Maxima has said MANY times in the comic, it is not a crime to have superpowers.
“Even if Maxima technically broke the law, if the person she “harmed” in the breaking of that law agrees with her actions, the case is closed and people move on to more important things.”
Agreement at the end of a gun is not agreement. If I take a gun (and Maxima is armed with or without a gun), and put my hand on it, saying ‘I insist that you come with me so I can question you’…. you agreeing to do so is not voluntary consent. It’s coerced.
“Just like you can choose whether or not to press assault charges in the vast majority of cases, Krona has the right to not press charges for a technicality.”
The particularly immoral part of what Maxima did was that Krona CANT press charges, not because what Maxima did was not illegal (it was most definitely illegal), but because she can’t do so without either exposing her powers and possibly exposing the Council. That doesn’t in any way excuse that Maxima did a terrible thing, which was also illegal and goes against Archon’s own charter and claim that ‘having superpowers are not illegal.’
Just to be clear, not saying Maxima is a terrible person. She just did a terrible thing in relation to what happened with Krona from a legal perspective. It just seemed odd, considering how Archon has been focusing on doing things consistent with US law and constitutional protections to civilians, and it’s just a good thing that Krona either isn’t able to (for secrecy reasons), or isnt wanting to (because she’s nice, wanting to remain on good terms with Archon for diplomatic reasons, and/or unknowledgeable about the law), press charges or sue.
Again, the reason why Maxi put her hand on Kronachrome’s shoulder, was because Kronachrome was effectively ignoring Maxi and continuing to dabble (heh) with the very thing she just said she didn’t know how it fully worked and that was potentially dangerous
It’s the same if someone the police are talking to is holding a running chainsaw: the person being talked to can not fully concentrate on the two things at the one time or accidents could happen (like turning too quickly and the chainsaw slicing into a cop, or a bystander, or themselves)
“Again, the reason why Maxi put her hand on Kronachrome’s shoulder, was because Kronachrome was effectively ignoring Maxi and continuing to dabble (heh) with the very thing she just said she didn’t know how it fully worked and that was potentially dangerous”
1) You are mistaken. Krona was not ignoring her. She was actually responding to her already, when Maxima decided to put her hand on Krona’s shoulder AS she made the ‘request/threat.’ Perhaps you should check the page again, since your memory of the page seems to be a little fuzzy? https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2506
2) Even if she WAS ignoring her (which she was not), she was not doing any wrongdoing, and had not committed any crime, and Maxima had actually stated she had not done any crime or wrongdoing. And Maxima had, earlier to Sydney, stated outright that ‘Having superpowers is not a crime.’ And part of the mandate of Archon, in the press conference itself, is that HAVING SUPERPOWERS IT NOT A CRIME.
“It’s the same if someone the police are talking to is holding a running chainsaw:”
Again, need to do multiple responses because your logic in making this comparison is lacking.
1) Krona’s power is not like holding a running chainsaw. You know what is like a running chainsaw? Maxima’s hand. When Krona was doing nothing bad – just looking through her log. OH GOD! SHE’S READING! STOP HER!
2) Again, you MISS the point – Krona did nothing illegal, was doing nothing illegal, and was doing nothing that could be constituted as wrongdoing. Maxima should have kept her hands to herself, DEFINITELY not said that she insisted that Krona come with them in a way that was NOT a request, and violated Archon’s own mandate in a very ‘Minority Report’ style ‘I’m trying to prevent future crimes’ rationale… with one exception. In Minority Report, they had more than flagrant guessing to tell the future.
A half-hearted response is not paying attention, because she continued doing whatever it was she was doing with that cylinder thing
No, you know what, shove your law degree so far up your arse you get a papercut on your tonsils, you are judging Maxi for something that didn’t happen and can not bring one shred of proof to back it up, so no, not going to listen to this bullfuck again
Okay, this seems to hinge on Maxima’s ability to detain Krona, your “gunpoint” so to speak.
To get to a technical question, can Maxima be threatened at gunpoint? She is clearly bullet “resistant” to a degree that normal firearms are zero threat to her, so I would say it is impossible to hold Max at gunpoint.
Krona’s ability to hack reality leads me to a similiar place. While Krona can be physically threatened unlike max, holding her against her will is probably an incredibly difficult task.
And, as Yorp stated above, Krona potentially did commit a crime. She had no idea what the actual effects of her exploit were, and endangering the lives of civilians, world leaders, cops, and we can go on down the list, are all crimes. She theoritically endangered the lives of every person on the planet. Sure, we didn’t die, but that does not mean she did not endanger our lives and that could be enough of a crime to warrant detaining her and figuring it out.
Yes, the comic uses real world laws as a basis, but we don’t have real world laws that handle “potential endangerment or willful destruction of all reality”, because including that sort of law would make a lot of people incredibly fearful and it isn’t a thing anyone can do. Except potentially Krona, which is what led to this entire problem.
Guesticus said:
You are a dumbass. There really is no other way to put it. You are an ass-backward dumbass. Maxima is the only person in this little drama who actually did something. Something happened which was a crime. You ask for proof, and it’s right there in the comic to be seen so very clearly. Krona on the other hand was detained for no crime at all, or for a thought crime, or for a future crime. None of which is an actual crime.
Now how about I also ask for proof? Prove that anything Krona did was in any way endangering anyone or anything at all. Make your case against Krona for the jury at her trial. I’d love to hear it. You can’t, because you’d need to be able to read minds or predict the future with 100% accuracy to do so. And if you could predict the future with 100% accuracy, you’d have seen the comic where Krona tells Sydney that she can’t actually break the universe before you ever arrested Krona for no crime at all. Whatever the fuck “can’t actually break the universe” means and however comforting that might be to Maxima or Archon. Krona can probably still break the Earth, or a few major cities, just like Jiggawatt and Maxima can also do. But hey, having superpowers isn’t a crime, right? Right?
Hint: There is only one correct answer to that yes/no question, and it isn’t ‘no.’
Or did Archon arrive at Jiggawatts’ door one day and say “Well now, seems you can create positrons. And while having superpowers isn’t a crime and you have committed no crime at all, I insist that you come with us to Archon HQ where our personnel will be taking a look at your powers to see just how dangerous you are to all of mankind”?
Hint: While I suppose that this could have happened, the real answer to this yes/no question isn’t ‘yes.’
But somehow in your back-asswards, lackwit brain you’ve managed to get things completely reversed.
This raises another question.
How can Maxima be bulletproof…..
(Resistant!)
Whatever!
….and still have soft boobs?
They’re Non-Newtonian???
Kevlar is bullet resistant and still flexible.
Yes and no, kevlar is flexible… Kevlar vest are definitely not
Only because it’s made of multiple layers of Kevlar. Type IIa armor has to protect against smaller handgun bullets (typically 9mm full metal jacketed bullets) – you need 16 layers for that. Higher up the scale, type IIIa armor has to resist more powerful handheld bullets (.44 Magnum). For that, you need at least 30 layers. Even then it’s still got some flexibility… until you start adding steel or ceramic ballistic plates.
And then you get kevlar composites(a bit like fibre glass, fibers and resin) thy’re used to stop things like 7.62mm FMJ and they most certainly do not flex…
Yeah, but that’s Class IV and Class V Hard Armor. It’s called hard armor for a reason.
It also isn’t worn by most police or military personnel – the Interceptor body armor used in the Middle East isn’t even Class III armor without the addition of SAPI or ESAPI boron carbide ceramic plates. Same goes for the new IOTV (Improved Outer Tactical Vest)… without the ballistic ceramic plates, it’s still only Class II armor.
In other words, our front-line soldiers are wearing… wait for it… flexible armor with additional armor plates. (And usually only vehicle crews and bomb squads wear the plates.)
Who cares? I want to be in Sydney’s shoes more now than ever xD
You realise she has tiny feet, don’t you? Could get mighty mi-tay cramped
Non Newtonian cleavage??
We don’t know they are still soft(I vote for not finding out… personal safety reasons ofcourse)… Max may have just broken Sydney’s nose….
So the fighting style from dune would work…. sort of…. not really…..
It is probable that max has more of… this is hard in english…
I’ll say it in Spanish and then try to translate
S-
Es altamente probable que Maxima tenga una gran dureza básica/permanente pero menor tenazidad. Permitiéndola ser flexible, moverse, etc, pero difícilmente ser cortable. Son características distintas. Un diamante es MUY duro. Pero muy poco tenaz. El acero es más tenaz pero muchísimo menos duro.
E-
It is probable that Max has high resistance to cut forces by deafult… deafolt… however. Like a diamond. but a lesser compresing resistance. So she may be able to move or be moved but hardly cut.
So Max’s boobs are compressible but can’t be cut. Makes sense.
Also makes sense her skin would have give, otherwise her joints wouldn’t be able to move. It’s shown that something that can stretch/bounce but not break is extremely durable since it can dissipate force before it actually has an effect on the molecular bonds. It’s about understanding plastic strength and shear strength. In fact, Maxima could be extremely… squishy… and it’d help (not hurt) her invulnerability. (Assuming off course her internal organs have similar properties. If they don’t… well, they’d still be hit with nearly the force of whatever deforms her skin.)
My alter-ego put that very well.
One point to add is that every cell in Maxima’ body is canonically protected by its own force field. Which obviously needs to flex (and be porous to things like air) in order to be able to maintain life function. Her heart could not beat, nor her lungs breathe, without that.
Wait have I been promoted to your alter ego? Does that involve any sort of pay raise?
He was referring to me. I’m Yorp’s alter-ego. Pay comes in bisquits and/or scoobysnax.
Pretty sure she didnt. Her armor isnt always set at maximum and while her skin is invulnerable, I am going to guess its the muscle and bone that is hard, not boobage (except when armor is up). Thats my guess anyway
Filled with ooblek? Interesting thought.
Check out Kipjo Ewers’ “The First” series. In the second book they comment on that, as well. She can survive asteroid impacts without damage, yet her skin is still soft. She said ‘it should feel like elephant skin’. Maybe it’s something to do with high speed impact absorption. Have we ever seen Maxima get hit by something incredibly slow moving? Maybe her durability can be neutralized by a very slow moving quarter :P
Imagine punching someone super buff in the stomach, while they flex all muscles. Feels like steel. Now imagine they don’t flex anything. Feels pretty soft.
Think that, but even more steel.
You should watch the Netflix series Luke Cage (and Jessica Jones): both of those series show how this works pretty well.
In those, the skin has normal flexibility and stretchiness, it just doesn’t break. So when a bullet reaches the point at which it would penetrate, it is instead forced to stop.
In addition, Maxima has a force field that follows the contours of her skin, so even if you were motorboating her, you would technically not be touching her (I imagine if you felt Maxima up, it would feel a bit like feeling up someone wearing silicon-coated lycra …for that glorious split second before you were rendered unconscious).
Because they’re boooooobs. You can’t just go around threatening to upset the foundational physics of the universe, even in a superhero comic.
I’m going to agree with you on this because it seems more zen than my answer.
The Luke Cage comparison in this thread is probably the best one, because the fact is that Maxima’s anatomy is more resilient than normal human anatomy, but it’s still made up of, presumably, all the same things. So, yes, her breasts would still be soft because they would still be made of soft tissue, pectoral muscle, and fat. And… you know, whatever her gold skin is made up, because presumably it’s a different material than normal skin. But it all likely has a different molecular structure which allows for her indestructibility. But her boobs are still fat bags, same as any other boobs, hence the softness.
I had the same “The transition was too quick/abrupt/etc.” reaction as many here…
BUT
SYDNEY GOT HER WISH IN THE LAST UPDATE. :-D
Let’s try this again.
I said something about this in the last chapter, but pretty much every response was about race and culture, which had nothing to do with my question other than a single word.
Here we go: Jabberwokky’s ‘Who’s Who’ says that she uses Super martial arts based around animal archetypes. But in her fight with the kinetic, she used ‘Crusader Style’ with sword and shield abilities. How does ‘crusader’ fall into an animal archetype?
Crusader is a story archetype. So perhaps it’s probably more broad than just animals.
Maybe. Except the info by the site itself says ‘animal archetypes’. Not ‘story’. It doesn’t make sense.
It just means that the ‘Who’s Who’ information, which does not reveal spoilers, was not updated after Jabberwokky used a non-animal archetype for her supernatural martial art.
Well, putting aside the fact that humans are animals, so mine original reply does actually solve the dilemma, the crusader beetle also provides a reasonable reply too, you just have blinkers on so are not spotting them.
Assuming both that the Who’s Who is definitive* and that it literally describes her limitations (rather than just being a way she colourfully describes a more complex power), then we can see her power emulating that of the crusader beetle.
Clearly they have hard carapaces. There was no shield manifested in the scene. The missiles projected at her were just bouncing off her skin. You are getting your knickers in a twist over her dialogue, not her powers.
Likewise we do not see a sword. We see Jabberwokky smashing the ground, with her hands, to create a shockwave. Presumably Crusader beetles have the usual kind of high strength we see (relative to their body size) of various insects. The most famous of which being ants, but we also see dung beetles carrying balls many times their own body size.
Scaling up such insects to human size easily justifies this super human blow to the ground.
Meanwhile Jabberwokky is just doing plays on words to describe what she is doing. It is not changing the fact that her powers are insect based abilities, scaled up to human size.
* Which it is not meant to be. It only provides such information as appears to be the case, as an aid memoir to the readers. As a commentator pointed out on the previous page, Jabberwokky’s entry has not been updated since her initial introduction. When we find out her full suit of powers we may find she has far more powers than were initially revealed.
We didn’t actually see the manifestationing of the Crusader Shield, seeing how it happened off-panel in panel the first, but the fact she mentions a sword implies the evil hyu-mon knight variety rather than insectoid
Sorry, but you’re just trying to split hairs. She literally says sword and shield. Not whatever crusader beetles attack with, or carapace.
It does not matter what she says. Those are words, not her power. She could equally say “I drop the Titanic on you”, without it suddenly granting her a super power.
We saw what happened. There was no shield. There was no sword. They do not exist. Look at the link. Nada nothing.
Didn’t mean it had to have been a literal Crusader shield, and we may not have seen an actual sword, but we saw the effect of one
So beetles carry tiny shields and swords do they? When we see them fighting on documentaries, and the blows being deflected by their carapaces, plus they bite an opponent with their mandibles, in reality they are actually using invisible shields and swords?
That is pretty much the same explanation as you are offering here. We see things bouncing off Jab Wo’s skin (if ignoring the invisible shield proposal) and see her hands striking the ground.
Notably they are held together with palms flush to each other (like someone praying), rather than wrapped around an invisible sword hilt. So if she is sword fighting, with an energy sword, she is holding it in a very unusual and insecure grip.
Whilst my explanation remains entirely consistent with what we actually saw.
Therefore, although yours offers an alternative explanation, it is not one which, in itself, invalidates mine.
That said though, I have previously indicated that the human crusader option is a viable one, as it too can explain the scenes. Albeit lacking an actual sword or shield.
I am keeping my mind open to either option. But when someone disputes the specifics of one, then I defend it, on its own merits.
We know that the Who’s Who is not absolute accurate, but instead only presents the information we have up to that point.
Main example is how Vehemence’s card changed as his powers were revealed:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1484 At the start.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1543 After he explained his powers.
Does that mean that you don’t have crusaders where you live?
Dude, the little buggers are everywhere, they are becoming a plague.
Fortunately they only come out at knight.
XDDDDDDDDDDDDDD +1
Thank you, thank you. I’m here every Tuesday. Try the veal.
Ba dum tish
Crusaders have been a plague a few times in the past. Eventually they get over it until the next crusade.
I like crusaders. Preferably caped.
Caped crusaders don’t generally cause genocide the way Crusaders do, lol.
Really? And here I though it would have been the Ottomans were the instigators. Well that and the conquest of the holy land with the robbers, slavers and murdering of pilgrims and other such fun stuff.
You haven’t been reading the right comics if you aren’t getting caped crusader caused genocide.
Frank Miller :)
Technically, like the Caped Crusader vs crime, I believe that the Crusades were a response against muslim aggression (I think from the Ottoman Turks or something).
But with no dead parents to spur it on, and the Crusaders didn’t take young boys as their wards. I guess they sort of had butlers though, if you consider squires and pages to be butlers… But no Alfred-level ones.
The animal archetype is a bit misleading; Dabbler hypothesises Jabberwokky’s power taps into the Aethosphere (collective subconscious) to empower her supernatural martial arts. So its less about animals and more about what people imagine about them — mythic totems and such.
Crusaders are in fact animals -bugs to be sure-, but the fight would have gone completely different if their defensive abilities informed her powers.
Here’s an attempt at a no-prize:
Jabberwokky’s power is indeed based on animals. And she does have to shout a name to activate each style.
However, the specific animal name does not have to correspond to the style activated, and she named certain styles before she knew what animal they were based on (or after she knew found out the names did not have to correspond).
Which raises so many more questions: did she just watch a kung fu movie one day, yell out a style name, and her body started moving on it’s own?
She was copying a character in an anime ( I forget the name, but I’ll repost when I remember it). There’s a character who has almost the exact setup Jabberwocky herself does: channeling primal spirits based around martial arts styles which are in turn based on the powers those spirits previously granted legendary/historical figures. Jabberwocky herself had an ill-defined physical enhancement superpower, and due to her assumption that it worked just like in the anime, the power developed in that direction. This includes tapping into the magical forces of the world (the ‘aethersphere’, according to Xuriel. In all my lifetimes in all the parallel universes where I’ve lived, I’ve never heard it referred to that way, but to each his or her or its own…), which seems to contradict what is known about how superpowers work, yet also to confirm other parts about how powers work: it breaks the ‘superpowers are non-magical’ portion, yet confirms the ‘subconsciously directed development’ portion.
It reminds me just a bit of God of Highschool. But tons of other series do the ‘totem type power’. Even the Persona series power types are similar.
The Crusaders, like many pre-enlightenment groups or societies, were animals?
It doesnt,Chances are since she named all the archetypes herself she just wanted to use the word crusader cause it sounds cool.,Much like over the years so many products have have random names for the same reason.
Panel 8
Death by booooooooooooooooooooooobs
Sydney’s glasses definitely need to make a saving throw.
Given the amount of physically involved incidents that this team participates in I would not be surprised if they don’t have something like 20 pairs of glasses in stock for each person wearing them.
They try new stuff occasionally. The HUD techo-specs were handed out at the start of the Super Brawl (c) only to find out that they lasted all of 10 seconds in hand to hand combat.
Sydney, Sydney, Sydney.
You should have latched onto the fact that those appear to be Flying Foxes . So Crimson is apparently a vampire fruit bat!
And what’s wrong with fruit bats? Even if your human form is a vampire it doesn’t mean your bat form should be vampire bats.
They’re a synonym for crazy.
I prefer guanopsychosis myself. It’s a little less vulgar than bat shit insane.
You clearly haven’t had a fruit bat shit on your car…. That stuff can strip paint in a few hours..
Had that happen to me, one shat on my car, and less than 2 hours later(I was only parked for 2 hours) I washed it off to be greeted with shiny bare metal….
Well, she’s certainly fruity… >_>
It may just mean that Crimdon is vegan. Except for that bit about sucking blood in order to continue existing.
Deep red juicy yet succulent Tomatoes and the occasional Pomegranate.
Maybe a fruit bat vampire can survive with just blood oranges?
… Crimson is one of Ingelsol (sp?) sires, and was shown to drink blood from “Mr.Fill-Up” during the Council meeting…
Mmm… yes and no. She is not one of his sires; he is her sire. I think the word you’re looking for is “childer”.
Sireling
Someone here has played Vampire: the Masquerade, I see.
Pander, it would not be inaccurate to ask “What hasn’t he played?” I’ve been a gamer for the better part of 34 years. The only pen-and-paper RPGs that I haven’t tried at least once are either incredibly obscure, or in a genre I’m not interested in. :)
If you haven’t, try Abberant :) White Wolf take on superheroes.
I have tried it, actually. I’m not particularly fond of it. After more than 20 years of the WoD, I’m burned out on White Wolf. (Yes, I know Aberrant isn’t part of the WoD, but it does use many of the same mechanics. I’m speaking in generalities here.)
20 years ago, though, I would’ve loved it.
A Vampire may still be able to consider themselves Vegan, if they only take blood from willing donors and not so much as to cause serious harm. Veganism is based on it being impossible for ‘lower’* animals to give consent to providing materials for human use, but it should have no problem when such consent can be obtained. I would refer you to an analogy in another webcomic (Leftover Soup?) in which a highly-sexed vegan (Max?) explains how she gets most of her protein, but it was several years ago – I’m not totally sure of the names, let alone having a reference link.
*Almost certainly the wrong word, but I’m not sure what the best one would be.
Is that why the bats were so small compared to their usual size? Because Crimson’s vampire age is young?
I was initially thinking flying fox sized bats forming her, but that’s probably just for whoever the oldest vampire is that I think Ingsol mentioned awhile ago but didn’t know whether they even existed or not.
That was a wired transition. At least show us her trying to sneak in first before getting to here. Also, why is Sydney always getting a face full of Maxima boobs? That should be a question someone at ARCON should ask, and if they can have next?
At least start your sentences. I spent several minutes trying to figure out when Sydney passed out.
… DaveB, I like that you made Crimson’s flight form a bunch of fruit bats rather than recolor the insectivid/vampire bats you used before (it also hints at interesting things about possible vamp-were crosses ,but someone already has a 5 moive franchise or that )…
Hmm, are you talking about Underworld or Twilight? They each had 5 movies in the series.
… Underworld – between Seleen(sp?) and Kevin Greviux(Raze)vs ‘twinkling’ no contest .Besides, Kevin Greviux would work as the voice of either Icon or Chrus(sp?again!)…
Maxima: “So you better answer my questions or you’ll be dealing with HER!”
Crimson: “I’LL TALK! I’LL TALK!”
Heh :) Weaponised wackiness.
“I have a loaded questioner…” ?
More like weapons-grade bonkercite:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/601
Good cop. Bad cop. Krazy Kop.
And with Dabbles around, Kinky Kop (but she would have to be deputized or something, and where’s the fun in that?)
Crimson: B-but she just said 7 sentances as one word!How do I even answer if I have no idea what she said?!!??! T_T
Does the place the vampire is from dictate the species of bat they turn into? Or do they end up with the local species by default?
I’m gessing that the sire’s original species is more relevant but one can “change” the bats if has the corret training
Are only vampire bat vampires true vampires? Do vampires have bat speciesism?
It’s actually geographic by the location where you’re turned. Essentially, the most common bat in the area, or the species of bat which represented by the largest bat in the area that’s less than 5% of your body mass.
I bet that were-bats catch a lot of flack over the vampire transformation thing.
They’re-crazy.
I’m guessing they are discussing the new orb at the start of the page and wondering what else it can do.
One way to make their guest spill the beans would be to lock her in a room with Syd for a few hours. Would such torture be allowed?
Not until Syd is trained. Or she will knock out herself sometimes.
At least we now know that the orbs have a collision avoidance system. Otherwise, in addition to Sydney getting a facefull of Max’s orbs, Max would be getting a facefull of Sydney’s orbs.
Suddenly the previous page is foreshadowing. Sydney was impatient for the sun to set, specifically hoping for a fast-forward as in most vampire movies. Apparently they already knew before the last page that Crimson was onsite as an unconscious pile of bats. Presumably she got knocked out last night just before sunrise and they knew that as a vampire she wouldn’t wake up until sunset. Remember the Private that had to mop up Max’s boot print off the ceiling? His next exciting assignment was sweeping up a flock of bats and putting them indoors, out of the sun.
Finally, someone on this page has a brain
Having received that news Sydney was probably thinking of a new question every minute, so no wonder she was figuratively climbing the walls, being unable to ask them. Her first question was probably “How many bats make a vampire?” Presumably someone told her, or let her see for herself, before the events of the previous page, otherwise she wouldn’t want sunset to arrive before she got the answer.
Urk, messed up the nesting: sorry.
And now I shall prove that having a brain is a transient condition for me, by going off into a couple of tangents.
First of which is that I’m amused that when Arc-SWAT was disinvited to meetings of the Twilight Council, Scarlett told Syd that they could still visit her, she just couldn’t come over to their house. Now they have! Accidental foreshadowing?
And the second tangent is that now I’m reminded of Ingsol’s daughter, Clover. Which means I am starting the campaign RIGHT NOW for a teamup of Crimson and Clover!
(If you don’t get that, you’re too young to read my posts)
Crap, that should have been Gregor’s daughter.
Blurgh.
Pretty sure she was Clover not Blurgh. He was on the second tier, several seats in. ;-)
I made an effort NOT to walk into that by putting the expression of self-disgust on a separate line.
I still maintain that I didn’t walk into that… I was shoved!
:-PpPpPpPp
:-D
Accidental foreshadowing, or deliberate? (Three. Moves. Ahead.)
“If you don’t get that, you’re too young to read my posts”
Or British: apparently it didn’t “make it” over here.
When was Arc-SWAT disinvited to further meetings of the Twilight Council? Was that before or after they saved their collective arses?
Before (#463). Actually it was proposed that they disinvite themselves: whether the proposal still stands in light of subsequent events is debatable, especially considering who tabled it. But given the chaotic nature of the Council they may still be persona non grata.
Don’t remember that, that would be like the US disinviting itself from G20 summits because it’s having a tizzy with Belgium (due that whole ‘Freedom Fries’ PR disaster)
Spanners is right.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2270
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2275
Spanners: “Crimson and Clover” is a 1968 song by American rock band Tommy James and the Shondells. Also, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts did an excellent 1982 rendition.
Guesticus: Before they saved their collective arses.
Grrl Power 463
Crap, was looking for a metal cover of that, but can’t find it, thought it may have been “Cradle of Filth” or “Type O Negative”, but try this version
Oh right, remember that page now: Ingie suggested disinviting them, but nothing was said further because of the Manny-attack
Well, TBH, I’d like to have answers to Sydney’s questions (and a few more), too.
How many of the bats have to become rabid before you do too? Can vampires become rabid or even get sick? Can your bats get sick? If one of them has diarh…no, wait, How many bugs do vamp bats have to eat in order for the vampire feels full? I know yours are fruit bats, but I’m asking about vampires made of bug eaters.
Can you turn just partway into bats so that you can flap your arms real hard and fly that way? Does a person have to invite all your bats inside before you can turn into bats in their belfry? What happens if someone only invites some of your bats in, can the rest come too?
Do you gain weight if your bats mate and have babies?
I’m sorry, but I feel I must paraphrase Plinkett here…
Maxima, what’s wrong with your FACE?
People have been asking that for the last week or three
But did Sydney get to eat yet? Did she get to take her meds?
Someone needs to make her a side kick robo-orb that follows and records her. But it also acts like an extra set of eyes… sensors…a babysitter. It can carry her meds and auto-injector, some safety tools taser auto injector, has a small grapple multi-tool… and can speak hear watch… this is so that Hacker supers on team can test their baby AI’s… to become an adult AI and pass team testing a tour as Sydney’s sidekick is required. This of course will require an AI psychologist on team…
The team wonders why their soda machines are SMART these days…really smart… they mention Sydney causally and the machines shake and shiver…and dispense well shaken sodas…
—
Back to current/ Sydney just happened to have eaten a “Garlic Bomb pasta explosion w/sea food” (was told to eat more protein she’s a growing girl and her training makes her body need it too. THis after the noonish lecture carried over into dinner time).
At dusk perhaps sydney went to yell at the sunset and sees the cloud of bats goes to examine them… does her PORT trick after sending a weird message about seeing a batsignal…
She belches on arrival or poots…which rendered bat cloud unconscious. //
It makes us wonder…. hell that would make for a nice fan submitted art piece… Sydney spice and garlic belch attack… “He’ll be okay…right? Vampires regenerate. Right?”
Wow. I’m just … wow. Except slower and more coherent.
Im starting to think the main reason that Sydney is so Sydney is that at some point she annoyed her doctor and shes spent the last few years chowing down on placebos instead of actual meds lol
“re-vampire”? Shirley she’s a vampire regardless of form?
Depends on your definition, I guess. And maybe the answer to Sydney’s question: “Could somebody kill the bats like normal or would you need like fifty little stakes?”
If a vampire is defined as a dead person drinking the blood of the living, are they still a dead person in live multi-fruit-bat form? Is a butterfly still a caterpillar? If you can fold a laptop back on itself to form a tablet, can you still call it a laptop in that state? Is vampire the definition of the person or their state?
Yes. and don’t call me surely.
I liked you for your comment on the boob thread, and now I hate you and NielsR for this comment butchering the Airplane quote. *shakes fist at you*
To be fair if you didn’t do it, I would have though.
I love that one too. The rest of the scene is funny to watch. But that is the most memorable and quotable part.
I would have preferred “Re-vamp”, but that’s probably just me.
Where/when/what ???? could someone link to the strip where this vampire was knocked out??
There is no such page, it happened between pages.
… feels like i have missed something.
When did they catch that wampire intruder?
Earlier that day probably. It wasn’t shown in the comic exactly when, where, or how she was caught.
Well, we are out of the original flashback (I think), so now we get another flashback showing a vampire trying to sneak into Archon.
Nope, still in original flashback
The earlier pages mentioned going back a few months, right now we’re barely in the second week.
Plus, do you really believe there wouldn’t have a huge graduation ceremony for Sydney? Not to mention, how she would react to seeing her new pay for becoming a Corporal?
I dissaprove of this.
I want continuation in the right order.
A- Girrrrl Power
Hey, anyone else having a problem where the entirety of the site is shoved to the right in Chrome?
using chrome on mobil, not seeing a problem.
Yes and no. It seems margins or padding or something else involving the width (I am talking about the HTML code of the site) is handled differently in Chrome than it is in Firefox. Because of that the area with the page in it is just slightly too wide to fit side to side with the Who’s who inside the purple background column and it shoves the Who’s who and other objects down under it, afterwards aligning the page and comments to the right.
If you use a wider screen or zoom out things go back to normal. It has been like this for quite a while now.
Yea, it has always been like this. Adjusting the zoom helps. It always needs a bit of a pull on the slider to centre it though, if you are like me and prefer to have a bit of a gap either side.
I wonder if the ‘side bars’ (albeit that they get pushed down to the bottom, if zoomed in) make this inevitable, or if there are techniques to get feedback on the size of each user’s window and allow for such centering to be done automatically?
Although putting the ‘side bars’ as permanent features further down the page (in whatever form may be necessary) is an alternative way of doing it.
That would loose the advantage of, for example, being able to easily compare the Who’s Who to the comic page. But I have gotten used to mine being at the bottom of the page, due to zooming in to maximise the comic page and comments text. So such a hypothetical change would suit my personal viewing habits.
OK human with a bat face… eww. Those particular bats though… aww.
Whilst they are asleep. Kind of like kittens. As opposed to the balls of fur and claws they become, when they wake. Then it depends on what they are doing as to how cute they may be.
*wags tail dotingly*
I wonder if vampire bats are descended from vampires that got stuck in animal form somehow?
*warily looks out of window, for vampire wolves*
Mmm, maybe they become Velcas? I recently held a baby one, in my paws, they are bigger (across the shoulder) than their relatives (stoats, weasels and ferrets) are when fully grown. I had a friend who kept all three as pets, so can say that with certainty.
Those are fruit bats, which are cute 24/7. Totally different family (i think) to other bats.
Upside they aren’t predatory so generally the only time they’ll attack you as a “balls of fur and claws” is when they’re rabid.
Downside… if your attacked by a fruit bat you’ve probably contracted rabies.
Of course Fruit Bats have no buisness being related to vampires… but that just makes it a cool artistic twist. (I wonder if she can sustain herself by becoming her bats and then sucking the juice out of apples instead of people)
Heh, I was referring to what kittens become, when they wake up.
I bet she was a vegetarian, before being vamped. She probably has to sustain herself hunting blood oranges.
Or other vegetarians, as the hipster vampires call them ‘organic,free-range, humans’.
According to the Tree of Life website, the odds are that all varieties of bats are a single clade – i.e. they are all more closely related to each other than to any non-bat, and there are no extant non-bat descendants of their most recent common ancestor. The entire collection are probably closely related to primates, tree shrews, and “flying lemurs” (which are more closely related to bats than to other lemurs). The large majority of evidence is consistent with this view.
However, there is a contrary theory – with some evidence in support of it – that bat-type wings evolved twice independently in mammals. In this view, megachiroptera – Old World fruit bats, including some nectar-eaters and a few species that do echolocation (by tongue-clicks) – are related to primates etc. as above or even more closely, while microchiroptera – all other extant species of bat – belong somewhere else on the tree of life. Where is unspecified. I once read something suggesting that they are related to rodents, but all I can find on that subject now is a creationist site laying out a series of really stupid arguments against that placement.
You might have been reading a batman comic. Joker referred to Bruce’s alter ego as a “flying rat” or a “flying mouse” on more than one occassion. once, very long ago, I saw this with an asterisk, where the author noted at the bottom of the page that rodents and bats are more distantly related than bats and primates, which totally blew my mind at the time.
So did the thought that my Mom was wrong in her scathing comments about how comic books would make me stupid.
A question no one seems to have asked yet, why is Sydney present to the interrogation of a possible spy?
She has the clearance to know about the supernatural thanks to one of her orbs, and she certainly isn’t in any danger, but it still doesn’t seem like something a recruit should be present at?
Note what Maxima is saying. Have a thought as to how many individuals could contain a cloud of bats, without harming them. Not many, other than Maxima herself. Sydney may have been one of the few to paw.
And Maxima does need backup, when dealing with vampires. Whilst she can handle any number of ‘average’ ones, we do know (from a comment by Dave) that Grrlverese vampires come in types (presumably clans) which have distinctly different powers. Some of which will doubtless be able to mesmerise.
Something that Maxima can only resist with willpower, which has strict limits. A strong vampire could overcome her. Hence instructing Halo on her options.
Plus Halo is getting on-the-job training. This is an opportunity to demonstrate interrogation techniques. We have seen that super-villainy is not politely waiting until Sydney has finished her basic training, before striking. Maxima is seizing any situation as an opportunity to multitask. Both solve the issue and train her apex superheroine apprentice.
I figured Maxima was talking about hypothetical upgrades to the air-ball, at least what would be useful for the team to have, before being interrupted by the bats waking up. I hadn’t thought of how they could use Sydney’s shield as a cage for the bats (even if it locks them in with the vampire, or rather locks the vampire in with them).
Well time has passed, and Sydney may have completed the testing Maxima had scheduled. Once she recovered from her trauma, by the pool. They are military and would press on with the task, if she was fit to do so. As such it may not be hypothetical.
But, yes, that is what the alternative would be. However I do not think it would have been in the abstract, Maxima is a very focused commander. A stark contrast to Sydney’s personality. I am pretty sure that those comments were focused around ‘ways to deal with the vampire’, even if they did pass beyond the ‘stuff we know Sydney can do’, whilst waiting for the vamp to wake up.
Even if not training, all employees need tasks to work on. This is a low risk task that clearly calls for a super or two – for security clearance, and cause normies probably couldn’t control a vampire that didn’t want to cooperate except by use or threat of violence.
Since she’s supposed to be an ally, it seems to be very low risk, except of course for whatever is behind that as yet unanswered question.
The best way to avoid being mesmerised is to stop looking them in the eyes or in Maximas case backhanding them at near lightspeed every time it looks like theyre trying to get her to stare at their eyes XD
They are limited on the number of people who know about those covered by the Veil.
Sydney will have to learn interrogation techniques at some point and can do that by sitting in on a few.
…and that’s why you shouldn’t transition like that, Dave.
What a page of foreshadowing a transition not enough for you?
Let us hope that what is NOT an incidence of foreshadowing is where Crimson woke up. She is in a tiled room with raised-edge metal tables that have overhead spray hoses above them. They put her in the MORGUE.
Which brings up 2 issues
1) Being a vampire and technically ‘dead’ this may be appropriate.
2) Wait, Archon has a MORGUE?
I bet they have a veterinary room, for werewolves and the like. In addition to the doc’s room, I bet they also have a fully featured surgery. Whilst both the vets and the surgery might have some equipment you would only see in the other type of establishment normally (e.g. cages in a human one or a wheelchair in the vets) they both are specialised to the needs of their core patients.
The morgue is just a hospital for dead people.
*wags tail definitively, with a cheeky twist, at the end*
maybe that raised edge table is a large cookie sheet. That’s what I thought at first.
Actually Archon having a morgue wouldnt be that much of a surprise.Even when dealing with just the superpowered community they probably have to run some SCP Foundation level protocols from time to time with dead bodies etc.
Considering the first few years of the comic took place over a couple of days these last few pages seem to be time snapping back or something.
Shh. We have been hinting at Dave to practice doing this for years! It would be nice to eventually get past the starting point of the comic.
Besides which it is fun to fill in the pieces of ‘how did they get to this point?’
*gives grey cells a massage*
Boob-shush
More popular than the Shusher from the film Home.
But I *like* Sydney’s questions! They’re the kind of questions I’d be asking if I was in her place.
Yes but they’ve also been shown (via Harem) to be both rude and the kind of thing that most people don’t test.
Aaaand Maxima has a new face again. Every couple of updates her face changes. She gets more asian… then more European… then more native American… then back to European… then, as in this case, inuit. She also seems to be getting less and less expressive.
Wait… does Maxima have a super-botox addiction?
Honestly, I can only assume Maxima’s unique complexion is affecting how she is colored… and since the colors are, apparently, done by different artists… well, it’s the best explanation I’ve come up with for why only Maxima’s face changes so rapidly when no one else’s does and it only started like 6 months ago.
Ah well… it’s not a huge deal. Just kinda jarring. I’ll live.
Well, all the faces have been looking weird lately, but they’ve at least started recovering; Maxima’s is definitely the worst victim currently.
Such is the nature of experimentation with art styles. Maxima is particularly challenging, given her unique albedo and texture.
I agree that her face does not match our expectations, but I feel that the above points have improved, as Dave has practiced the new technique.
My only hope is that Dave is aiming to recapture her established look, but in this new style. As opposed to modifying it, to match the style. But the trend we have seen makes me believe that the former is indeed the case, so we probably just need patience.
Meanwhile enjoy seeing the development unfolding in front of your eyes. I found that to be one of the more interesting aspects of the Salvador Dali museum, in that you could walk down a corridor of studies of drawing pins, to see how he gradually evolved his technique, until you finally see one in a major work, at the junction with other corridors, each showing similar developments contributing to that.
Likewise with the more famous floppy clocks. Which started out as very normal looking ones, then got the melty treatment. My respect for the artist jumped up a notch seeing how massive an amount of work went into developing even the most inconsequential-seeming aspects (such as the humble drawing pin).
Not a fan of how Maxima looks here. I think I liked how DaveB made her face best back during the ‘testing Halo’s flight speed’ strips.
Yea, those are the most memorable. Although a number of ones since (but before the current experimentation) have deserving places in the hall of fame. In particular when they captured her humanity, despite her unusual nature.
Whilst the flying Maxima was highly expressive, and had a stunning face, it was definitely showing off her superhuman side more. Only subtle differences mind, but they grab the feels.
yeah :). I did also really like the look of her face when she was upside down after Sydney’s meeting with the awesomely named money advisor, Aurelius Shrapnel.
I like to think its Krona on purposely trolling everyone for yknow arresting her for the crime of saving Halos life on a joint organisation mission.I have to admit if I had the power to edit reality id probably do that too=).
Haha, “HORMP!” That whole grab is excellent.
Its good to see Max can use her boobs for something useful, the than esthetics.
If Mathias was smart he’d start making random questions non-stop while around Maxima as well, if he ever saw this happen.
Let us all raise a glass of butterbeer to toast the birthday of one Harry James Potter.
(you may substitute pumpkin juice if you wish)
For those of you wanting to feel old, according to the books he would be 37 years old today.
If only he hadn’t died in that tragic car accident, shortly after the climax of the last movie. Oops… err.. that has been made public knowledge, right?
Do you think the two go together? I could definitely see pumpkin spice butterbeer being a hit.
HAH!!! Told you all! Eventually we would get to the page Sydney’s new mughsot photo came from!!! And this is it!!! :D
I missed the comment, but you are spot on. Nicely done.
So….did we just jump ahead in the day, or did I miss the part where they caught the vampire?
Sydney spent an entire page willing time to move on to evening, to avoid a boring afternoon of lessons.
Well, it worked.
I’m ashamed of you guys. Not one person has yet to comment on how ridiculously dangerous it is to use knockout gas in an uncontrolled setting.
Most notably when Russian special forces used gas to try to subdue the attackers of a crowded theater and killed a quarter of the people there with the gas. (“Moscow theater hostage crisis” on wikipedia if interested)
There’s a reason anesthesiologists are paid so much money.
It wasn’t the gas that killed the students: the EMT’s (or the Russian equivalent) didn’t put them in the Recovery Position, and that was what killed them
Yea, you are right. The risk of of an undead vampire dying is… wait… what risk? She has no pulse, no breath, no heartbeat. Clearly Crimson sleeps though, so it sounds like a valid tactic to try out, from that point of view.
Although you are right that Sydney must avoid exposing others to the effect. But all those boring safety instructions will have been in Maxima’s preface. She knows better than to dangle something tempting in front of Sydney, until she has given her warnings.
Though if she doesnt breathe how did she breathe in the gas????
Still need to breathe to talk: the larynx requires air to pass through it to vibrate
Superhero stuff doesn’t always require that. I believe that in DC comics, Kryptonians, for example, do not need to breathe. Supergirl discovers that in New 52, and it also explains how they can fly through space when they’re not just ‘holding their breath.’ – although that last part could just be an example of ‘Writers did not do the research.’
Memo to all Vampires-Dont monologue while sneaking into a high security facility-even if you can dodge all the cameras everyone will be able to hear you and your unholy corpse will fall unconscious as you breathe in the funny tasting air ^^
The trick is to get her talking, so the gas goes in her lungs. ;-)
Any kind of knockout is potentially deadly.
When they knock someone out in a film using a punch or pistol whipping them, that person should seek medical attention.
With one exception. If hit in the head by a dropped bowling ball or coconut the common effect is total amnesia. The treatment for this is to drop another similar object on the victim’s head. This will result in the immediate restoration of the person’s memories. This treatment was written up in the Bedrock journal of Medicine by a doctor Livingstone.
Or if they get hit on the head with a piano, there is a good chance that they come out of the top of the piano with the piano keys sticking out of their mouth.