Grrl Power #550 – Stealth oh hi there
So a lot of people were a little confused by the last page. I don’t blame them, after doing this comic for so many years, I haven’t had actually done many transitions. I mean the first nearly 300 pages were just consecutive moments all strung together. The intent of the page was that it was Crimson’s perspective, which is why the first panel comes in midway through Maxima’s sentence, as Crimson is coming to. Anyway, I added a caption to the first panel so hopefully it plays better now.
Maxima allows gambling among her squad, but placed a $5 limit on all wagers. Since all the supers there make serious bank, someone could bet $100,000 on something stupid without it being posturing, and that sort of thing can get out of hand real fast. She has the same rule for poker night.
So yeah, on this page, Crimson was just trying to add a little drama, and honestly if she could get a leg up on all the Supers, it would soothe her supernatural ego after Max and Co. wiped the floor with the manekillers and the Super Husk at the cost of just a few articles of clothing. Obviously it didn’t work out quite as she planned.
I updated the very stale vote incentive finally, with a commission I got at A-kon from Fred. The bra shop is almost colored, but it’s not ready yet cause I was trying some different coloring techniques and programs which is good to do but obviously isn’t the most streamlined process. I haven’t updated the thumbnail on the vote box thingy on the side bar, because the last time I updated something since WordPress changed their Text Widget, it screwed something up which is why the cast page is down for now, and I didn’t want to get into that as I’m posting this at 2 am.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Still, anything involving Batman is innately good….
But, this comic hasn’t had the full origin story yet.
Except, Batsie is the ultimate DC Villain: he trains all the freaks in Gotham, and has the means of taking down every Hero any time he chooses
Except Diana…
Well technically he still has the means. He just tends to get tongue-tied around her.
The problem with Wonder Woman is largely that her only real ‘weaknesses’ have been retconned over the years, so that the only real limitation on her is having someone around more powerful than she is, or using magic, which tends to work on most people aside from actual magic-users like Zatanna or Dr. Fate. She no longer has the whole ‘bound by man’ = no powers limitation anymore. She still has the ‘vulnerable to pointy things’ weakness / still isn’t bulletproof (except in Injustice, which is just stupid because there’s no reason for the bracelets then), but she’s so freakishly fast and has such fast reaction time that, with the bracelets, she might as well be bulletproof (once you can block every bullet from a machine gun while blindfolded, you’re essentially bulletproof).
In short, she has no kryptonite flaw that tends to make for a good superhero. If there’s nothing to threaten you, aside from having someone else around that’s even stronger, that severely limits the threat of any villain ever existing and the length of any storyline.
Let’s be fair, the main reason she had that limitation in the first place was because she was created by Dr. William Marston, who believed bondage was the key to a healthy relationship and tried to include as much as of it in his comics as possible. No, I’m not joking. He believed that bondage “had a leveling effect on gender relationships”. I bet his bedroom saw its fair share of Wonder Woman costumes in its day.
When she first appeared, she fit the cringe-worthy, air-headed stereotype that was still acceptable in the 40s. In fact, when Wonder Woman first appeared as a member of The Justice Society in 1941, the group made her their secretary! She might as well have been a stereotypical blonde (but with black hair, super strength, and indestructible bracelets). She didn’t get revamped as a badass feminist hero for a few more decades, and it wasn’t until the 1980s when DC Comics started ignoring all the bondage crap.
Case in point: In issue #45 she chipped a nail, and she pretty much sat down and waited to be shot. In another issue, she was blindfolded by surgical tape on her eyes; when she tried to remove it with just the strength of her eyelids, it nearly ripped her eyebrows out… and rather than sacrifice her eyelashes, her feminine vanity forced her to escape blindfolded.
You mean like Power Girl, who (being from a different version of Krypton) doesn’t have the vulnerability to Kryptonite, so they replaced it with something even dumber? I have to question the effectiveness of any superhero who can be knocked down with something as simple as a tree branch. In the same comic, she explains that she’s vulnerable to “any raw, unprocessed natural material,” which would presumably include things like water, dirt or, you know, air. She can stop a bullet, but throw a rock at her face and she’s dead. Basically, the whole planet Earth is “earthonite” to her.
(That would explain the Power Bewbs; maybe the writers are telling us that she has so much plastic in her body that the mere presence of something not made out of silicon makes her sick! Probably not, though, because they’ve been ignoring this weakness for the last 15 years or so.)
Have you heard about upcoming movie?
Thank you. I did not know about this movie. Sounds interesting.
“Let’s be fair, the main reason she had that limitation in the first place was because she was created by Dr. William Marston, who believed bondage was the key to a healthy relationship and tried to include as much as of it in his comics as possible. ”
Oh I’m fully aware of Wonder Woman’s origin and how her creator was this MASSIVE BDSM guy. It was very prevalent in Silver Age Wonder Woman stuff. I remember reading in Superdickery that there was one issue where Wonder Woman talked about how being a female slave was a good thing as long as your master or mistress was a good one. I’m just saying that Wonder Woman did lose one of her only real ‘kryptonite weaknesses’ when she lost the ‘bound by a man = loses her powers temporarily’ weakness.
“You mean like Power Girl, who (being from a different version of Krypton) doesn’t have the vulnerability to Kryptonite, so they replaced it with something even dumber? ”
Actually yes, I mean like that. Power Girl originally had Kryptonite as a weakness, then lost it, it got replaced with ‘any unprocessed material’ (which was a moronic weakness), then had no weakness other than red solar radiation, then had no weakness at all because she was Atlantean instead of Kryptonian, and then she got her weaknesses restored so NOW her weaknesses are again Kryptonite, red solar radiation, magic, and mind control, just like Supergirl and Superman.
Wonder Woman, on the other hand, has NOT had any of her weaknesses returned, which makes her a little more boring as a superhero than someone like Supergirl (or Power Girl). That being said, the movie did a GREAT job of Wonder Woman, definitely one of the best live action DC movies they’ve ever made. It helps that she wasn’t utterly invulnerable in it, and had to actually do things like use a shield and her main enemies were strong enough to give her a challenge, like that German guy or Ares. Same for the animated movie – Deimos and Ares were both major challenges, and the ‘no weaknesses’ part was very downplayed. Also, some of her enemies, like Cheetah, had to be upgraded to MAKE them a challenge, like making Cheetah speedster-level fast PLUS have magic claws so that she could get past Diana’s defenses, since otherwise she would literally be fighting just someone in a furry outfit :)
“(That would explain the Power Bewbs; maybe the writers are telling us that she has so much plastic in her body that the mere presence of something not made out of silicon makes her sick! Probably not, though, because they’ve been ignoring this weakness for the last 15 years or so.)”
I know you’re joking, and funny joke btw :) But the real reason for her boobs getting bigger was it was a running gag by the artists trying to see how big they could make the boobs before the CCA would tell them ‘Hey now, Stop it already.’ :)
*sniff sniff sniff*
I think you still have a soul, in there. I bet you built in some cunning that allows you visitation rights, on alternate days!
She does, but don’t let that get outside of the Grrlpower forums. Pander has a reputation as a soulless lawyer to maintain. ;-)
I wasn’t aware that Power Girl’s weaknesses had changed so often. I stopped collecting comics sometime in 2000, so my knowledge of the Marvel/DC universes is a bit out of date. I was aware that the boobs were actually a running gag, but as Pander points out, I was trying to make a joke out of it. :)
Fortunately, most lawyer don’t spend their time reading comics and webcomics. They’re too busy doing lame things like making money and being boring (suckers). But still I thank you for keeping my terrible, terrible secret within the confines of the forum.
As for Power Girl, yeah, her weaknesses pretty much changed even more than her origin story changed. Sometimes where one writer didn’t even acknowledge a previous writer’s changes. For a while, for example, after the Atlantean stupidity, but before the modern New Earth standard (which carried over into New 52 and into the modern version as well), Power Girl WAS vulnerable to Kryptonite, but only Kryptonite from Earth 2, not New Earth, which basically made her NOT vulnerable to Kryptonite since Earth 2’s entire universe no longer even existed. The writers then decided that was idiotic, since it was idiotic, and just gave her the same weaknesses to Kryptonite that Supergirl, Superman, and pretty much every other full-blooded Kryptonian still alive had.
It’s really a shame that you stopped reading Power Girl by 2000, because you missed the absolute BEST version of her (and some might say one of the few genuinely good versions of her, written and drawn by Amanda Conner, imho one of the BEST comic book artists aside from/along with Adam Hughes, Stjepan Šejić, and J Scott Campbell.
It kind-of looked like Wonder Woman was only invulnerable in the recent movie when she remembered that she was really a superhuman goddess.
Sort of a “Oh, that’s right. I’m actually an invulnerable goddess and not an ordinary squishy person.” and then bullet would bounce right off her, smashing through and leaping over buildings would suddenly be done without apparent effort.
A bit Roger Rabbit only being able to escape from the handcuffs “only when it was funny”.
Thought that was more Wondies being bound by her own lasso than simply being bound by a man, because not even she could break free from it and it’s magical effects
No, it was that being bound in ANY way by a man would remove her powers. Btw, being bound by her own lasso does not remove her powers. She just has no special protection against it any more than anyone else does. Although sometimes, according to certain writers, she has a telepathic link with the lasso, in which case even the scenario that you presented, of her being bound by her own lasso, is not a problem either. It just adds another level of Steven Seagal-level invincibility to her that makes for a more dull superhero. Wonder Woman, the movie, was NOT dull. It was awesome. Partially because they did NOT make her invulnerable – and if anything they downplayed that aspect to make it clear that she actually is NOT bulletproof and can be harmed by bullets – that’s why she had the shield. Because while she might be able to easily deflect 6 bullets from different directions, and deflect one or two bullets from a machine gun, when it came to a full hail of fire from one or more machine guns, she used her shield (unlike in the comics, where she’d be able to just deflect them all with the bracelets, or unlike Injustice, which stupidly makes her Kryptonian-level invulnerable to bullets, while not giving her a similar kryptonian weakness, like they have with Kryptonite).
I actually also like the new Justice League Action cartoon. They similarly power down WondeR Woman juuuuuust enough that everything is not effortless for her – she has weaknesses, and in that, she CAN get bound by her own lasso which does not have telepathic links to her.
So far the only six people who have broken free of the lasso in any incarnation of Wonder Woman (aside from Wonder Woman herself because of a telepathic link) have been Genocide, Bizarro, Queen of Fables, Kama Khan, Amazo, and Supergirl (in New 52 because of her solar blast). Technically, Batman did once as well, though with him it was via some sort of escapology, rather than through pure might or powers.
In any case, even if her own lasso did remove her powers (which they don’t), it’s still sort of a weaksauce weakness for her one ‘weakness’ to be something which she herself possesses at all times. It does require a particularly gifted writer to put a character like that in believable jeopardy without handing them the idiot ball. Something DaveB had managed to do VERY WELL with Maxima more than once now, which is an extremely impressive feat, actually (although Maxima, and Grrlpower in general, is also at least partially a deconstruction of standard comic book tropes, helped by the fact that at least some of the characters, like Vehemence, Deus, Sydney and Maxima, seem reasonably-to-extremely genre savvy).
(Although, to be honest, don’t hate me but Vehemence’s amount of genre savvy nature got a little annoying after a while, but it did work really well especially for conversations between Sydney and Maxima, like with the discussion on ‘bad powers.’)
Didn’t actually mention being tied by her own lasso robbed her of her powers, just that being bound by it left her in the same vulnerable position as anyone else she binds in it
It’s not really a ‘weaksauce weakness’ as one would still have to overpower her first, it was just something that helped to ensure she staid bound until released
Surely that would work though? On the basis that her telepathic link is a power, so if someone does manage to bind her with it then she would loose that power along with any others.
OK it is going to be darned hard to do it, in the first place, if she can give it mental commands. But if they distract her, trick her or otherwise find a way around that, then she would have to rely on her non-super capabilities alone.
For instance she could just say the safe-word, and I am sure Batman would stop the kinky stuff and undo her straight away.
Yea, let us hope that Sciona and other badass villains are not all closet comic nerds too.
That said though being knowledgeable about your profession is an important skill that an educated person would cultivate. And if your field is a brand new one, which does not have a large body of academic papers covering it, then you have to turn to whatever is available.
Studying fiction, which covers the subject would actually yield benefits. The writers will have explored many conceivable scenarios, and could give insights on predictable problems, ethical dilemmas and even offer creative solutions.
For instance we do not have a body of trained first-contact specialists at the moment. Yet aliens might arrive tomorrow. It would be advisable to pick someone who is well read in science fiction, when choosing amongst candidates who are otherwise equally qualified.
So it is not unreasonable if we find more than a few villains who have brushed up on their comic lore. Although I too would be happier if we skipped such for a while. Fortunately Sciona and her vamp ally do not seem to have that inclination.
Deus we could forgive for having some knowledge, as he did used to date Maxima, who was into such things. Even if she had ended that by the time they met, he clearly does research her background, and so could well have rounded out his knowledge, to help them connect more.
Some of the interesting pieces in his weapon collection potentially reflecting this. But I am glad that he did not otherwise show an interest in geekdom. Even farming out his tech requirements to nerdy minions.
Guesticus:
“Didn’t actually mention being tied by her own lasso robbed her of her powers, just that being bound by it left her in the same vulnerable position as anyone else she binds in it”
Except when she has a telepathic link to her lasso (which she does in canon usually, which I dislike) – mainly because that means she can’t even be really bound with her own lasso the way you’re describing.
“It’s not really a ‘weaksauce weakness’ as one would still have to overpower her first, it was just something that helped to ensure she staid bound until released”
Actually, that makes it an even BIGGER weaksauce weakness, since it’s barely a weakness to begin with, since you first have to overpower her in the first place, and she’s a top tier strength superhero – ie, on par with people like Kryptonians, Icon, Marvel family, Martians, and Captain Atom. But without ANY of the weaknesses those others have. It makes storylines for her really difficult unless you’re willing to significantly power her down to make enemies at least a moderate challenge, like they did in the movie.
Again, excellent, EXCELLENT movie. Literally the second best live action movie DC has ever made, after The Dark Knight.
Yorpie-doodle:
“Surely that would work though? On the basis that her telepathic link is a power, so if someone does manage to bind her with it then she would loose that power along with any others.”
Only if the writer doesn’t give her the telepathic link. If they do, she can’t be bound by even her own lasso because it will respond to her mental commands and can just un-bind her. Fortunately a lot of writers don’t bother to use this in animated versions, like Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Justice League Action, and the DC Cinematic Animated Universe movies (like JL vs Teen Titans where Superman used her lasso on her to free her of demonic possession of Trigon). It’s also why the animated (and now the movie versions) of Wonder Woman are sooooooooooooo much better than her comic book versions in every single way.
“But if they distract her, trick her or otherwise find a way around that, then she would have to rely on her non-super capabilities alone.”
The problem with that tends to be that many comic book writers are lazy and the weay they ‘trick’ the hero is to hand the hero the idiot ball. Admittedly DC Universe Online did a good job of having Circe and Deathstrike together in the promo, where Deathstroke pretty much pickpockets the lasso from her while they’re swordfighting, giving Circe an opening to blast her with magic (one of the few actual weaknesses she has, assuming she doesnt block the magic with bracelets, which sometimes happens).
“For instance she could just say the safe-word, and I am sure Batman would stop the kinky stuff and undo her straight away.”
That reminds me of this comic :)
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/72/51/36/7251361092b1460be7165d6059a5d70d–funny-comics-batman-comics.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/c0/03/6d/c0036d32243b0f428596597a4a139270.jpg
Admittedly not even REMOTELY what Diana would ever act like, but still sort of hilarious :)
That being said, I definitely do not think that modern Diana would ever be the one to GET tied up anyway :) She’s very take charge – totally approve of that :).
“Yea, let us hope that Sciona and other badass villains are not all closet comic nerds too.”
I sure hope not. Some genre savvy with some villains can be funny, but if everyone has it it sort of diminishes Sydney a lot imho.
“That said though being knowledgeable about your profession is an important skill that an educated person would cultivate. And if your field is a brand new one, which does not have a large body of academic papers covering it, then you have to turn to whatever is available.”
True :) I like how Maxima (and Dabbler) regularly does remind Sydney that a lot of the tropes in comics and the movies are a result of bad writing and ‘Writer did not study the topic.’ VERY meta :)
“So it is not unreasonable if we find more than a few villains who have brushed up on their comic lore. Although I too would be happier if we skipped such for a while. Fortunately Sciona and her vamp ally do not seem to have that inclination.
Deus we could forgive for having some knowledge, as he did used to date Maxima, who was into such things. Even if she had ended that by the time they met, he clearly does research her background, and so could well have rounded out his knowledge, to help them connect more.”
Oh I am LOVING this current story arc with these villains. They’re well thought out without being annoyingly genre savvy like Vehemence was, and understand the concept of having an actual reason for what they’re doing beyond ‘just because I want to fight.’
I like three-dimensional villains a lot. These villains seem very much like that. And I like sympathetic villains or villains-that-are-not-really-technically-villains even more (like Deus, who is sort of awesome and reminds me of a Maxwell Lord type from the Supergirl TV show, one of the better characters in that show that’s had a horrible downward spiral in the second season, with the exception of the crossovers).
A mentally controlled item can only operate when the user is concentrating on giving it a task. This is as true for Wonder Woman’s lasso as it is for Sydney’s orbs. As such, the rest of the time it is just a lasso, which can be manipulated the same way as any other.
Hence why I stipulated the need to do something like distracting her to pull off the trick of binding W.W. with it. Another technique would simply to have a super speeder do the task. Maxima would be more than capable, for example.
But my key point of contention was that once she is bound (however that may have been achieved), W..W. cannot just mentally order it to undo itself, as she has lost that power.
“In fact, when Wonder Woman first appeared as a member of The Justice Society in 1941, the group made her their secretary! She might as well have been a stereotypical blonde (but with black hair, super strength, and indestructible bracelets). She didn’t get revamped as a badass feminist hero for a few more decades, and it wasn’t until the 1980s when DC Comics started ignoring all the bondage crap.”
Actually in the 70s during the height of the ‘girl power’ thing, they actually took AWAY all of her powers and made her a secret agent. THAT was totally cringy. :) It was so bad that they don’t even reference it ever having happened nowadays. And yes I’m aware that they made Wonder Woman the secretary of the JLA in the 40s/50s. That was majorly cringy too.
Nope, he has something to work on Wonder Bewbs as well
There have been a few things that Batman has come up with for Wonder Woman, but most of the time he admits that he doesnt have much against her. He’s tried using the fear toxin of Scarecrow and holographic tech to make her keep fighting until she literally exhausts herself, and that’s pretty much it that we’ve seen. Once, he showed Superman boxes which each had countermeasures against each of the Justice League. The only box that was empty was Wonder woman’s, because he said if she ever went rogue, Superman would be pretty much the only thing capable of stopping her (although honestly Supergirl would be a good choice too).
And honestly, with her arsenal of magical weaponry, even the various Super-people would be in trouble. I mean, really, none of them are very good fighters, after all. They just sort of… trade punches with people.
There are only a few characters with superpowers who Wonder Woman has ever said are literally good fighters – Black Canary, Supergirl (she knows a Kryptonian martial arts called Klukor and Zatanna said one day she’d be a better fighter and superhero than even Diana), Power Girl, and Karate Kid.
Honestly, with the exception of Wonder Woman and those other four fighters, most of the best hand-to-hand fighters in the DC universe are actually non-superhuman human beings
Richard Dragon
Lady Shiva
Cassandra Cain
David Cain
Slade Wilson (Deathstroke)
Bruce Wayne (Batman)
R’as al’Ghul
Talia al’Ghul
Ben Turner (Bronze Tiger)
Connor Hawke
Vic Sage (The Question)
Constantine Drakon
Damian Wayne (R
Dick Grayson (Nightwing)
Ted Grant (Wildcat)
Oracle (at least when it comes to Escrima Fighting, since she was trained by Richard Dragon)
The thing in common? They’re all humans, without powers.
Before the Flashpoint reset, Superman trained in martial arts with Batman while he was de-powered for a year. And then he spent a year depowered in Gotham filling in for Batman while the pre Flashpoint Gotham was being held in a pocket universe with no yellow sun. And considering Rebirth Superman is basically pre Flashpoint Supes with New 52 Superman’s memories tacked on, I’d say he still knows those martial arts.
Actually he doesnt know Torquasm-Vo anymore. He hadnt since Silver Age except for in two issues in New Earth which were promptly forgotten afterwards. And Torquasm-Vo is sort of the “hippie” martial arts, like I-Ching. More about meditation than fighting. The two kryptonian. Martial arts that are for fighting are Klurkor, which is similar to a mixture of Judo and Karate (Supergirl is a First Level Klurkor fighter, equivalent to a black belt – the levels go from high to low in klurkor, and she taught a little of it to Lois and Superman but she is much much better than thrm at it since she has been trained in it since she was a child), and Haro-Kanu, which is a Kryptonian martial art specializing in pressure points. The only known living user of that is Faora, who got a rename in new earth to Ursa. Its possible that Karsta Wor Ul (ie, the third Kryptonian) might also know it since she was in the Kryptonian armada like Faora was. Btw, Supergirl also was trained in various Amazonian forms of hand to hand and weapons based fighting styles by Wonder Woman and Artemis, as well as some basic earth martial arts by Batman. Also an Apokoliptian hand to hand fighting technique when she was brainwashed which required Superman to have to use a kryptonite ring to beat her.
For the most part, Superman just jobs in his fights and relies on his powers, although he was taught boxing by Wildcat (the same person who taught Batman boxing) but still got beaten in boxing by Mohammed Ali when red solar radiation was used to remove his powers.
Btw, that last paragraph was the assessment of both Wonder Woman AND Batman, on multiple occasions. Wonder Woman had mentioned this several times, especially when comparing Kal’s fighting technique with Power Girl or Supergirl (although Wonder Woman did beat Power Girl when they fought because she’s simply a better trained fighter than PG, although the fight with SG was at a standstill in New Earth, and she only beat SG in New 52 because SG used her solar flare to break free of the lasso and SG was at the time still pretty new to fighting with powers, unlike New Earth SG).
*puts coat over Pander’s shoulders*
Don’t worry, it may be over for now, but Comic Con will be back next year. We will be here for you, in the meanwhile.
Nice cos-play outfit by the way.
*pouts* I’m talking too much about comic lore stuff, arent I?
This is a comic website, so all is good. :-)
Better than when I talk law, I guess :)
Hopefully in a wrestling ring whilst covered in oil.
Please don’t go Batman: White Knight on us with Batman as the villain :)
It does make sense for a vampire to try to emulate Batman.
Batman doesn’t need to turn into bats… and he wouldn’t of been caught
I just got this image in my mind of Batman turning into a swarm of bats, all with a bat-mask covering their face and bat symbol on their chest, so thank you XD
I might be mistaken, but I recall hearing about a story where Batman actually became a vampire…
Justice League: Gods and Monsters?
That wasn’t actually Batman (Bruce Wayne) – I believe that was Kurt Langstrom.
Yeah, it was Kurt But Kurt’s Batman in that universe.
Yeah. I’m just saying that it wasn’t ACTUALLY Batman. Just like in that universe, ‘Superman’ wasn’t Kal-El, it was some son of General Zod who was raised by migrants in Mexico, and ‘Wonder Woman’ was not Diana or an Amazon, but was instead a New God from Apokolips.
All in all, they weren’t actually all that heroic when you think about what they were considering doing (although of the three, Wonder Woman was probably the most ‘good’ by heroic standards). They actually remind me in a lot of ways of the ‘heroes’ in The Authority.
I don’t know… Lor-Zod had a certain amount of heroism to him, what with his ability to make hard choices that he knew he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself for. He’s not the savior figure that Kal-El was meant to be, but I don’t think he’s undeserving of being called heroic. When taking a life is an act of compassion, I think Lor-Zod handled it better than Kal-El would.
I’d consider him more of an antihero/potential villain like I consider the Authority members. Mainly because of how he was talking about how it just takes a small amount of people who want them to rule to just take over the entire planet. “Revolutions have been built on less.” He’s definitely a Zod… :)
I don’t consider him heroic. Sorry. The only one there that I do consider to have heroic qualities is that universe’s Wonder Woman, who at least tries to do the right thing and is the only one of them who seems to question the idea of taking over the planet. Kurt not only doesn’t, he gives an analysis on how successful they’d be. Lor-Zod seems almost like there’s barely anything keeping him from doing so. She’s the only one who seems to have ANY moral qualms about it.
The other thing is… he’s not just ‘some son of Zod’. He’s literally the same egg Kal-El came from if it’d been fertilized by Zod rather than Jor-El. Genetically, he and Kal-El would be half-brothers… but in terms of dimensional dynamics, they’re half the same person.
You’ve got a pretty narrow definition of heroic, then. Classically speaking, a hero is a character who exemplifies the virtues of a culture.
Look at American culture, and try to tell me seriously that the spirit of revolution isn’t inherent in who we believe ourselves to be.
I think that was real but I can only say for sure that there was one animated series episode were he was injected with bat DNA and seemed to go temporarily insane as his senses changed.
Sure you are not thinking of Man-Bat?
Yep. Some other mad doctor with derivative serums insisted on transforming Batman and Cat Woman into their respective creatures on his wildlife themed island.
Not to be confused with Batman of the Future, in which derivative serums were in regular use until they became the equivalent of gang tattoos and got outlawed. Didn’t stop kids from abusing shark DNA at a pool party, though.
Hmm, can vaguely remember that episode…
Spicefreak is referring to ‘Splicers’ from Batman Beyond. It was in several episodes actually, including the animated movie ‘Return of the Joker.’
Was meaning the episode with Batsie and Catsie going ‘feral’ :P
Ohh… you mean like Catwoman becoming a werecat sort of thing? I’ll have to do some research on that. I don’t remember any comics or animated cartoons with that happening, at least not in Batman Beyond (I think that Catwoman has long since retired by the time Terry McGinnis is Batman).
No, it wasn’t Batman Beyond, was talking about the first part of SpiceFreak‘s comment, not the Batman Beyond part :D
Erk. Okay I guess I learned something new then :)
There was a TAS episode where Catwoman was turned into a literal cat person. I’m sure this must have happened to Batman at some point (possibly in one of the times he fought Dracula?), but I don’t think it happened in the DCAU continuity.
Further research turns up an episode synopsis for “Tyger Tyger”, which seems to support your thoughts. I could have sworn that the episode had included a brief, yet traumatic, transformation of batman himself but I guess I must have been mistaken.
I think there may have been a dream sequence or Scarecrow induced hallucination of him turning into a bat. I have a vague memory of it, but I’m not really sure which adaptation it was from.
Can you imagine a movie titled The Island of the Evil Doctor Clouseau?
There might be a few.
I have a Batman vs Dracula somewhere which ends with Dracula destroyed and Batman as Vampire.
I know that Batman fights Dracula in ‘The Batman’ – and wins. Dracula winds up vampi-fying the Joker, Penguin, and a few others.
Batman & Dracula: Red Rain . There were a couple of sequels as well.
It was one of those elseworld type spinoff series but yes, batman became a vampire, ended up draining all the criminals and I think eventually alfred before gordon sacrificed himself to take him down. On a related note, batman has also been a pirate.
i thought corporate raider was his DAY job?
Nah, he leaves that to Lucius Fox.
So he’s been a pirate, a ninja, and in one TAS episode he fought a robot version of himself.
Now we just need a Zombie Batman and we’ll have the whole set.
will a Frankenstein style bats suffice?
Eh, close enough.
there was also an Elseworlds where he was a literal Dark Knight.
Have not of.
Both sides of that bet could be right.
Implying that certain members of the council, like the two vamps we know are working for Sciona, actually work for Sciona or some other organization that wants to change the status quo.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the council actually did not like humanity and were only working in the council to gain political power. I mean, that is what I would do.
>, I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the council actually did not like humanity
Liking humanity isn’t a prerequisite. They just need to not get into a pointless war with humans.
I don’t like humans. Can I join the Council?
Some are OK.
They like petting doggies and put food and water in their bowls.
*wags tail affectionately*
The Council probably would want
snacksto recruit volunteers, rather than have them running around knowing their secret.Correction they don’t want to get into a highly destructive war that might leave the planet uninhabitable with humanity.
We are at the scary results point, where no one winning is a real option.
I guess Ingsol is a very good sire. He must have explained all the do-dats before turning Crimson.
I’d probably still be freaking out after 40 minutes.
Well, I figure Ingsol is a vampire that believes in consent.
Hmm, seems that I think like Sydney. That probably explains a lot…
So, who’s Andrews?
Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
So basically Maxima is saying that Crimson is lucky she picked this place, because on other bases she’d just have been vaporised?
Prolly dissected…
I guess so. I think Max is implying that Archon went easy on her because they’re familiar with her, with vamps, with supernaturals and the super-powered in general. More mundane military personnel would have treated her with more suspicion and hostility and, should she resist supernaturally, try to use lethal force. Naturally, Crimson would escalate the force and power she’d use to protect herself and the resulting injury (or worse) on the ordinary human soldiers would be… messy.
Basically, a “Hey, it’s Crimson. What’s she doing here?” vs. “Someone’s trying to break into the base. OMG, she’s strong and our guns have no effect on her! Sound the alarms, break out the heavy weapons!” sort of thing.
I doubt they realized it was Crimson, just that they had special countermeasures setup for vampires, vs regular personnel that would have just shoot the crap out of her.
Yeah. The point being that Archon is less likely to panic or react adversely to something strange arriving at their base compared to ordinary soldiers at a less super-power-oriented base.
If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood,
Who ya gonna call?!
No, Arc-Swat.
*gives you 50 bucks*
Adds another $20 to the pile going to David.
yeah. Something on the line of handguns don’t help, get me the phosphor grenades.
1-in-5 tracer might have some effect, presuming that her body is substantial enough to make the bullets slow down and tumble, like what would happen inside a normal person.
She’s hinting that Andrews is bristling with toothpick cannons.
Used to be Andrews Air Force base, now Joint Base Andrews, in Maryland. Among other things, the air wing that runs Air Force One- the President’s plane- and does VIP transport for heads of state visiting America is based there. Security, to put it mildly, is fairly tight and has no sense of humor (though frankly is probably still not a patch on what it was at the big SAC bases at the height of the Cold War).
Unless there was an actual alert on you would be surprised at how lax security often was. At the base I was stationed at chemical and even nuclear weapons were stored in bunkers with heavy steel doors, all secured with simple padlocks.
Wow, you had padlocks?
Some nukes don’t even have the doors closed.
*salutes @ Last Week Tonight*
We kept them on the launcher, often in the open.
Granted in a very secure launching area, with MP with “shot to kill” orders in dozens of guard towers.
“Heavily invested in human business and… Well, you know the score.”
I like that. It’s a nice, down-to-earth, practical touch given to stories involving fantastic and supernatural elements working in an otherwise mundane setting. Aside from all the epic and high magic and beyond mortal stuff such characters would do, there’s still so much free time and ordinary minutiae they’d have to deal with- just like normal human beings do.
In Vampire: The Masquerade, the Ventrue own a LOT of human-run businesses (along with the Syndicate, a techno-mage group).
Syndicate? Do you mean The Technocratic Union? Is there another faction I’m supposed to be keeping track of?
The Syndicate were one of the subdivisions back in the day. Their specialty was the best magic power of all. Money.
Actually the Syndicate, according to the re-write, were originally part of the High Guild and were founding members.
Yes, they had the Batman power :)
Yes, the Syndicate is one of the Conventions that make up the Technocracy. They’re the ‘money mages.’ The others are the NWO (Men in Black), the Progenitors (cloners/Gattaca types), the Void Engineers (outer space people), and Iteration X (basically Robocop/OCP, or Terminator/Skynet).
The Syndicate used to be called the High Guild, the Progenitors used to be called the Hippocratic Circle (basically CREATED medicine), the Void Engineers were the Void Seekers, Iteration X were the Artificers, and I believe NWO was the Voltarian Order. There were four other groups also, the Solificati (alchemists), the Sons of Ether (who were originally an offshoot of the Artificers), the Difference Engineers (who then became the Virtual Adepts) and the Craftmasons. The Solificati, Sons of Ether, and Virtual Adepts at different points of time left the Technocracy over differences with the Technocracy (the Solificati when alchemy was removed from Consensus, the Sons of Ether when Ether was removed from Consensus, and the Virtual Adepts because of people like Alan Turing), and I think the Craftmasons were basically incorporated into the other Conventions.
I love Mage: The Acsension. Such a well written bunch of lore.
er, Ascension…
I’ll bet she has a really great 401(k) plan.
+1
What does her t-shirt say about the Masquerade?
Probably a wink to Vampire: The Masquerade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire:_The_Masquerade
It’s a tabletop setting about vampires.
Yeah, I know. I run the second campaign on it right now.
I was just asking f maybe some keen-eyed people here are better at reading phrases with missing letters and entire words than me.
I have not seen it, but the shirt appears to be a reference to a ‘Spinal Tap’ like mockumentary of the life (so to speak) of a group of vampires in New Zealand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_We_Do_in_the_Shadows
That was not a mockumentary, it’s all true
The Unholy Masquerade
New Zealand *****
Can’t quite make out the last word.
It’s a meeting of the undead. In our reality, they are (I’m assuming) meetings of the pre-dead dressed as their final form. Posters usually have “No humans allowed” on them.
My guess is a band tour shirt. She IS in a band, remember.
I think it’s a year but my eyes aren’t good enough to make it out completely; maybe New Zealand 2014 or New Zealand 2004?
Think you have it. Looks like 2014.
More proof that Krona’s time reset broke the universe! She is wearing a 2014 T-shirt in a flashback set in 2011.
Correctly deduced!
I’m guessing “The Unholy Masquerade – New Zealand 2014”, a fictional event that forms a part of this movie.
Not fictional >_>
Wait, she has a t-shirt from an event that is three years in the future? o_O
She’s signed up as a technical consultant, so she got the first run T-Shirt. ;)
Yeah, but what about the 2012 and 2013 events? o_O
Are they still in 2012? I know that this takes place in the past, and at the very least takes place when Obama was still president, but is it possible there’s a rolling ‘date’ for the comic?
Ooh, ooh, if there is can I date her next please?
*wags tail eagerly*
I can do all the flowers, cinema and restaurant things. If it all goes well I can even try to convince her to give up on serial dating and go steady with me.
Not that sort of date, Yorpie.
Here’s a yorpie snax for being adorable though.
Yay! Next best thing.
Munch munch munch.
When did they get to 2012? Prior to the ‘flashback’ Sydney was driving a car with a 5/11 tag, and that was three months (or so) prior to The Bank Job
Ahhh okay. So 2011. Gotcha. I am GUESSING that if DaveB wants to make it a rolling date though, he’d be able to make it anywhere between 2008 and 2016 by removing that tag. Beyond that I don’t think he can since there’s that whole Obama strip in there when Sydney walks in on the closed meeting, and that dates the comic within the Obama administration until he gets back to modern day (ie, out of the flashback)
05/11 could be her parking space number at work.
And since it is an alternate reality where supers exist, they could still have Obama now for president. Our laws and their laws don’t have to match up exactly.
If you wish to insinuate that Sydney would drive without valid taxation, on display, I shall insist on satisfaction! You may choose pistols, swords or natural weaponry.
Incidentally the ’05’ is probably not the month. Rather it will be the county code, for instance in Texas ’08’ is Fort Worth.
I honestly didn’t even think of that.
Then again I didnt notice the tag in the first place. I only have been dating the comic based on Obama’s appearance during the flashback.
Darn it, and I see that my brain did a switcheroo of “Fort Bend” with “Fort Worth”. Good news is that they are both in Texas. Bad news is that one is a city, and the other a country.
*sigh*
Not that my knowledge of US counties is exactly comprehensive. The only ones that spring to mind are “Orange”, “Hazard” and “Alameda”.
*looks suspiciously at list*
And I suspect that television might have mislead me somewhere.
country = county
Not fictional?
If the Unholy Masquerade isn’t a fictional event, how is it that every time I Googled ‘Unholy Masquerade’ I kept coming up with “What We Do In The Shadows”?
Because that is a true documentary, made to look like a mockumentary, and the ‘Unholy Masquerade’ is “Invite Only”, you won’t find it online anyway
It’s a bit pixelly to read properly when it’s zoomed in, but from what I can see it says ‘The Unholy Masquerade” with, underneath “-something- island -something-“.
It looks like an advert for a theme cafe or something similar.
…
It -might- be ‘New Zealand’ followed by a year, now that I’ve spotted a previous reply. No telling what year it is, though.
A patreon reader has made use of the higher resolution version they get, and informed us that it is “2014”.
It should be noted that the comic is set in 2011 (based on that being Sydney’s car tax date, and her being of honest character so we can expect it to be current and valid).
That even Vampires enjoy roleplaying games.
In Crimson’s case she is a vampire pretending to be a time-ravelling human who attends roleplaying events.
I show them batman isn’t stealthy. This is how you be a stealth expert..
Fails minute two.
I don’t know how he does it…. oh right fiction.
Batman doesnt have to be stealthy always.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMd4S-LkywI
Will Maxima have to pay Sydney back later because at least part of the council is working with Sciona?
Then again, the focus point was about Crimson’s motives (seeking asylum) not the reason behind it and that was still wrong.
Hard to tell. It’s amazing how much rests on the details- even when it’s just an ordinary wager made for fun.
Just because a few members of the council are working with her, doesn’t mean the collective council is.
Does raise an interesting writing prompt.
Say you have a council that governs a country. In secret, every single member of the council has betrayed their country, and is working for the enemy. But none of them know about the other member’s betrayal, so they think they are the only turncoat.
So you have a bunch of great actors making decisions that benefit the country in the war, but all their plans are foiled. Then they all make a great show out of finding the traitor, while they are the traitor.
I think that can be a comedy show.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Was_Thursday <- been there done that, a century ago.
Plagiarism I say! They stole my idea.
Those damn time travelling plagiarists…:)
In Roadmarks, one of the time travelling characters is an archaeologist in some future society. When he needs money, he travels to Babylon or Sumeria, makes some fancy pottery, buries it in some obscure place, travels forward to his “present” time, and digs it up.
Completely authentic, keeps him in spending cash.
:)
I do the same with my mate Leonardo. I give him tips on future technology and he daubs one of his canvases.
you bury Leonardo de Yorpie, then dig him up later? how do you make money from that?
Cryogenics work wonders. He was a man born millennia before his time. Now the world has the tools he needs.
Just keep track of your spending-money, & always remember:
[https://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Strictly-Spider-Robinson/dp/0812572289]
Is Roadmarks a comic book?
A novel, by my brother’s favourite author. I never did manage to collect a complete series of his. The books I managed to get my paws on though were very enjoyable.
Getting a set of the Chronicles of Amber is on my list of ‘things to do before I die’. Preferably two sets, so I can give one to my bro.
There was a Get Smart episode, with a similar plot. The spy ring entirely composed of infiltrators, each from a different good guy organization, each only going along with the evil plots to get bad guy cred and eventually roll up the whole ring. The actual enemy agent who started it died years ago.
I’ve heard of Vampire The Masquerade games in which everyone is a different sort of supernatural person and they think they’re infiltrating a vampire organization, but nobody is actually a vampire.
Ooh.. very nice Fred Perry art. I do love his stuff. Have an old character doodle by him myself.
*checks* Jeeze… That art is old enough to buy alcohol…
So who else had to google “de rigueur”? Honestly thought Syd was referring to some character or something I had never heard of.
I think what would have made the transition better in the previous comic was if the first panel was blurry or dark round, selling it like it was Crimson just waking up.
Yeah, fuzzy around the edges, like Crimson when she was on the table :D
I had to look it up also :)
So you’re all gonna keep it a secret, and force your friends here to google it too? Without even a link?
definitely NOT de rigueur for getting along with your forum buddies. ;)
Hey, if you do not know how to keep yourself de rigueur, you need to spend more time practicing the Math therapy plan.
It just means ‘required by etiquette’ or ‘the expected thing to do.’
Basically, it’s a fancy way of saying it’s a trope. :)
Is this scene in the Doc’s office or some other location?
Crimson woke up on an autopsy table, so my guess is the morgue. If I walked into a doctor’s office and found an autopsy table I would probably start looking for a new doctor.
Why do people keep calling it an autopsy table? Just because of the raised edges? o_O
Probably because of the raised edges, which is typical of a morgue autopsy table. Also the tiled walls have a very ‘morgue’ feel to it.
Agreed. Plus nobody has offered an alternative which is more credible. Currently it is the only explanation on the table… err… slab.
And it fits, in being the appropriate place to put a recovering vampire. You don’t want her waking up in a ward with other patients, some of whom may have injury or surgical wounds. It would be unfair to subject her to that temptation, when she is not allowed to snack on them.
Thematically a morgue is an appropriate place to put a member of the undead. And if she did turn out to be hostile there is less likelihood of causing damage to precious equipment here, than in a medical facility. Likewise they would not want to bring a potential threat into their cosy quarters.
Obviously their secure interrogation chambers and prison cells would be another viable option, normally. But diplomatically that would be inappropriate for a delegate serving on the Council’s leadership table.
I still say it’s a giant cookie sheet, and Crimson was about to be someone’s lunchtime hors d’oeuvres.
She quite obviously is not a prostitute!
*fluffs fur in mock outrage*
Another yorpie snax for being adorable.
Foodies!
Munch munch munch.
It is the forensics lab. Vis a vis any CSI procedural docudrama.
Forensics? Archon has a debate club? Sydney should join. Maybe she can get them to do a Kirk vs. Picard challenge.
Easily won, just choose Picard and make sure to stay on morality.
*swishes tail with finality*
Or choose Kirk and make sure to keep the subject connected to how borked star fleet command and the prime directive is along with the awesomeness of bedding all the hot alien girls ^^
Kirk would win. He does not believe in a no-win scenario.
Which he solved by cheating. See he looses on morality.
*flips tail dismissively*
Mind you I like Kirk. But he is not even fit to polish PIcard’s boots, as he should be serving numerous sequential life sentences for his various crimes.
Pfft. Kirk would rig the questions so every answer is something with which Kirk would be extremely familiar. Also he’d have not disabled Picard’s buzzer,but instead rigged it so if Picard buzzes in, Kirk’s panel would light up instead.
And the answer to every morality question would be about how to best get orion slavegirls to sleep with you.
Yes.
Fortunately this would all be going on inside the virtual reality that Picard would have insisted be provided for Kirk, to have a fulfilling mental life, whilst confined in his sensory-deprivation isolation cell, for the rest of his natural life.
All enforced by elite heterosexual male Time Corps personnel, to ensure that Kirk had no way to wriggle out of being confined in the first place.
Oh like Kirk couldnt get out of that!
The big rub in this choice is that though they are both excellent captains theyre both ideally designed for their times-Picard is primarily a peacetime captain best suited for diplomacy in more settled/familiar territories and playing the role of ambassador while Kirk is a frontier captain best suited for exploration into new dangerous territories where more immediate decisive action needs to be taken and the rules by neccessity need to be treated more as guidelines just to get the job done.
Though we can both agree that Janeway is the worst captain right?
Sometimes that is indeed necessary. However Kirk consistently prioritised his and his crews needs over that of the development of entire civilisations. That is actually the worst kind of captain to have on exploratory and first contact situations. Which is when the most damage can be done the most easily.
As regards the last, agreed. Barring the nightmare scenario of everyone above him, in the chain of command, dying leaving Wesley Crusher as captain.
“Though we can both agree that Janeway is the worst captain right?”
I wasn’t a big fan of most of the Voyager crew except for Paris and Kim, honestly. And the Doctor, OBVIOUSLY. But he wasnt actually ‘crew’ if we’re getting technical :).
I think the best captain, however, was ….
Captain Edward Jellico.
Practically a ‘Strawman has a Point’ trope in the episodes he was in. We’re supposed to disagree with him but the one who kept coming off as petty, unprofessional, and downright stupid was Riker.
But… but… he hated Picard’s apprentice, Livingston!
Ahh Jelico…Ive got to admit It was great to see a more “military” captain for a while.He was definately an excellent captain in general to be honest and Idve loved to have seen a lot more of him in action.
I’m a big fan of the ‘Strawman has a Point’ trope. When there’s someone who the author clearly wants us to think is the bad guy, but when you get past the whole ‘he’s the de facto bad guy’ and actually judge him or her by his or her ACTIONS, you find that he (or she) is actually the one… sometimes the ONLY one…. who actually makes sense and the strawman is not really a strawman after all.
Best example of that, other than Captain Jellico, is Carl Anheuser from the movie 2012 (who honestly made more sense than all the other idiots in that movie), and …. at times…. Shane from the Walking Dead TV show. Before he started going nutso (which I more blame on Lori than anyone else since she was playing mind games on him).
I’d go against both of them on the topic of the advantages of putting locks on doors and not building computers from explosives.
Seatbelts, don’t forget seatbelts.
The way Crimson is misusing “underestimate” in the last panel makes me itch.
???
How did Sydney (actually) misuse it?
Oh, Sydney used it correctly, but Crimson responded as if Sydney had used “hold in low esteem” instead of “underestimate”. Which, y’know, sort of comes out meaning the opposite.
Crimson could be taking it either way. We have no way of inferring her meaning that specifically.
Personally I took it in the greater context of the page, namely that Crimson was agreeing with Sydney, and this is not the first time that she had fallen foul of her overconfidence in her vampire abilities being
superior to ‘mere humans’.
To be fair, almost anyone with powers is likely to start underestimating ‘normies.’ Maxima does all the time. Pretty sure Sydney would too if it wasn’t for the fact that she’s sooooooooo genre savvy. She DID underestimate Mathias, after all.
True Maxima did underestimate how much normals are affected by gravity.
Mostly I’ve seen Maxima underestimate other supers and other people with super-powers (including Sydney’s orbs before she knew they were the orbs, back after the bank heist). She definitely underestimated Vehemence, she was about to underestimate Death Toll if Sydney didnt stop her. It’s one of her more prominent failings I think, even though it’s understandable given how powerful she is and how she’s one of the most powerful supers on record to exist (which I suspect is because her powers were either gained or more likely boosted by the ‘geode water’).
To be honest a lot of Maximas personality is probably a side effect to growing up as a Super Saiyan er i mean obscenely superpowered.Even with her stats in their base mode shes obscenely more powerful than 99.999% of humans and can shrug off even direct missle strikes assuming she even let them hit.
With that level of strength for so long it can be easy to start underestimating all the people that she could literally kill by accident and even give her a bit of an attitude since shes pretty much immune to consquences.Thankfully she mustve had an excellent upbringing because for the most part shes actually very patient friendly and moral.
If anything I think Dabbler is good for her in a wierd way since shes one of the few people that can poke fun at Maxima without any fear of consequences which makes people who work under Maxima feel more at ease since they can see dispite having the ability to destroy the moon shes still very very human.
I couldnt have said any of that better myself. Especially the part about a good upbringing. I really would love to see sydney’s parents meet Maxima’s parents and brother.
SYDNEY: “Dad? I thought we were here to meet Maxima’s parents? What are you doing here, with this woman?”
*Dramatic soap opera music chord!*Yorp…..Stop saying things this awesome cause it hurts knowing it will never happen!
Maxima has a ‘get out of jail free’ card, on that one. She was being affected by Vehemence’s aggro aura the same as everyone else.
As such she was not of sound mind. So we should not disparage her for any errors of judgement involving him.
I don’t think getting Maxima angry is a ‘get out of free’ card when going up against Maxima. She underestimated him because Maxima’s general idea is ‘if the person is too tough for my troops, I will handle them myself with sheer, overwhelming power and force..
Admittedly when you’re as powerful as Maxima is, that’s a generally good strategy. But you can’t really blame the aggro aura on her fighting him. She was fighting him and grinding him with a pedestal like pepper BEFORE he put the aggro aura up. She also could have dodged his hit in the first punch but wanted to go for the ‘intimidation factor’ of letting him hit her in the face without doing more than taking a single step back (and breaking her nose, but not letting Vehemence know that). That did still help to make Vehemence stronger, as did her attacking back (which is forgivable not because of the aggro aura, but because she did not know what his powers were in the first place) :)
In any case, she did underestimate Vehemence. It’s just understandable that she DID underestimate him. He was obscenely powerful with a very annoying power that kept gaining new abilities like a silver age superman storyline:) )
You have no evidence to support the supposition that his aggro aura was not on all the time*.
Whereas we do have evidence to the contrary. Barberian was a peaceful hairdresser, who would have no reason to be there attacking cops. Along with numerous other innocent civilians. The aggro aura had to have been in effect, for the fight to even start.
* Thereby affecting her judgement from the moment he arrived on scene. Which was right from the outset, as we saw him the moment Maxima took to the air, after Anvil engaged the guy with her nose-boop.
Possibly Maxima was outside of his range, or maybe not. We only had a snapshot of how big the aura was at one moment (Sydney was unable to view it prior to using the appropriate glyph, on the orb).
We have no idea if the aura is always that size, or if it is variable. Certainly his powers proved they were incredibly adaptable. Which gives adequate grounds to propose that the aura could vary too
Either way though Maxima is entitled to the benefit of the doubt.
“You have no evidence to support the supposition that his aggro aura was not on all the time*.”
Actually I sort of do, in that she gave him a chance to give up first, and she also stayed out of MOST of the fighting until Death Toll then Vehemence, with like…. two times where she bothered to get her hands dirty with fighting before then (Hex then the nameless guy who’s arm she dislocated).
If she was under the aggro aura the whole time, she would not have been holding off on fighting for SO much of the time.
We do know that Maxima has strong will, as she fought off the uber construct’s mesmerising attack. So the fact that she was able to resist the effects, on some occasions, does not prove that she was not being affected on others.
Again I contest that we are obliged to give her the benefit of the doubt, given that there is no way to be certain, one way or the other.
“We do know that Maxima has strong will, as she fought off the uber construct’s mesmerising attack”
I’m pretty sure she was only able to fight off the uber construct’s mesmerising attack because there was a crack in the lens that was giving off the mesmerising ray thing. Her mind is clearly still a weak point. Which does make for good possible future enemies, especially now that we know there are vampires and other creatures who are obviously not going to be able to stand up to Maxima physically. A smart villain does not attack the hero where they are strongest. They attack where they are weakest.
Indeed. Even with her strong will Maxima would not have been able to resist the attack at full strength. But that is per Dave, so we know that she does have mental fortitude. But presumably it is just from strength of character, as opposed to being a super defense.
So, yea, that is why Sydney is here. Should Crimson have turned nasty and tried to hypnotise Maxima, then they would have a means of combating that.
Maxima under enemy mental control must be one of the ‘nightmare scenarios’ that Archon will have contingencies for. Especially if they heed Sydney’s genre savvy warnings. Like you say mentally attacking her is clearly the route most likely to overcome Maxima.
I believe there was an ‘alt variant cover’ page on that – the one where there was an ‘Also, Arianna matches a Kodiak bear’ or something – where Cosmic Hitler mind controls Maxima (and turns Sydney into a squirrel, which she seems to enjoy).
Although I do believe that was a guest comic …. so not canon. But still funny.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/533
Crimson has been a vampire for forty minutes…? Am I missing something here?!?!?
Crimson started underestimating humans 40 minutes after she was vamped 40 years ago.
Actually Crimson became a vampire thirty five years ago.
Well, that’s 35 in vampire years. :)
She means that she started underestimating humans 40 minutes after she had become a vampire, which was decades ago.
A Lincoln is a pretty stingy bet for someone of Maxima’s rank.
Read Dave’s comments for the comic, he explains why only a Lincoln.
They don’t need the money anyway, it’s more about symbolism.
read DaveB’s commentary. She’s setting example/following rules by being nice and still inhibiting gambling problems.
If each bet’s $5, I don’t think Maxima has broken even yet, She lost $5 to Arianna and lost to Anvil with the note on the bottom saying she’d lost another bet about Sydney and the infirmiry. So she’s down three bets to one although I suppose there could be other bets we haven’t seen.
Speaking of other bets, the team aren’t following Maxima’s rule very well. There was a $10/$20 bet between Gwen and Harem plus a $20 bet on the Varia’s Father pool. There was another bet between Dabbler and Gwen.
The “Make Maxima Say…” pool is at $250 and seems to go up in $50 increments so I suppose the participants could each be putting in $5 per week, which would technically stay within the $5 bet guideline.
Strictly speaking, she paid Anvil’s $5 under protest, since TECHNICALLY Sydney didn’t say anything about her height :)
Also, maybe the $250 pool is a $5 per week per person bet or something like that :)
Having to pay a symbolic dollar hurts far more than any actual amount of money.
It was Sydney who made the bet
Gambling between officers and enlisted troops is a court-martial offense. At the very least it would result in Article 15 non-judicial punishment, guaranteeing the officer’s career would effectively end. There would be no poker night, either. But, ‘protagonist ex machina,’ I suppose.
Don’t forget that the rules and regs are set up separately for each branch of the armed forces. Archon is a separate branch and are free to detail their own rules. Clearly gambling, in moderation, even between the ranks, is within their permitted behaviours.
Noting that special forces units may well have exemptions that regular units do not, in any event. Their rank structures are necessarily more flexible, so their rules need to accommodate that too. This part is purely speculation though.
Plus a lot of people in Archon do not have a history of being military in the first place, while having special skills which make them indispensible enough that they’re not going to get all bent out of shape over some internal group-building gambling.
“Article 15” is a reference to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), which applies to all branches. As I understand it, variations btwn services are in the manner of the implementation of, not choice of what to implement, the UCMJ.
But Archon might be sufficiently “out there” to have only a partial adoption of the UCMJ, but tgat might even require federal level legislation to make it possible.
Good points.
Fortunately MSpears has below already covered applicable loopholes in the UCM.
Officially it is a violation of the UCMJ (Article 134, if I remember correctly). Unofficially, there is almost always a betting pool on football games, and a certain level of fraternization among service members of different ranks and positions is actually encouraged in the military. The key here is whether you’re building a team or building a personal relationship.
But once again, even if they decided to punish Maxima, exactly how do they plan to do it? Under Article 15, the options are: a 30-day suspension from duty (ARC-SWAT is not going to put one of their heaviest hitters on the bench); loss of a half-month’s pay for two months (their paycheck is so large that I don’t think Maxima would care); confinement in quarters for 30 consecutive days (again, taking one of their heaviest hitters out of the lineup); and extra duties or additional limits, as deemed appropriate by the commanding officer (I doubt Maxima would even break a sweat at any of the ‘extra duties’ that would be assigned to a non-super).
Simply put, there’s really not a whole lot they can do to her that would qualify as ‘punishment’ without discharging her or otherwise taking her out of action, which they’re not going to do.
I did some more research into it. Little $5 personal bets like the one between Maxima and Sydney (“I bet you $5 that Crimson is seeking asylum from the Council”) more than likely do not count as gambling.
What the military specifically considers inappropriate is “while on Government-owned or leased property or while on duty for the Government, an employee shall not conduct, or participate in, any gambling activity including the operation of a gambling device, conducting a lottery or pool, a game for money or property, or selling, or purchasing a numbers slip or ticket. This section does not preclude:
(1) Activities necessitated by an employee’s official duties;
(2) Occurring under section 7 of Executive Order 12353 and similar agency-approved activities (charitable fundraising);
(3) Private wagers among DoD employees if . . . transacted entirely within assigned Federal Government living quarters and within the limitations of local law;
(4) Purchases of lottery tickets authorized by any State from blind vendors licensed to operate vending facilities in accordance with 20 U.S.C. 107a(5).
“Any gambling activity” is kind of vague (and I bet you that it’s deliberately left vague), but #3 probably exempts these little bets, since it is a private wager.
The problem is not in the actual punishments, but the other part…the existence of an Article 15 in an officer’s record is a career killer no matter what service it is, even fake webcomic ones. No more promotions, no command assignments (including any currently assigned), and without promotions in an up or out career system, no retention for retirement. The non-judicial punishments wouldn’t even register for Maxima compared to the greater implication of the Article 15 itself, nor have they ever for any real officers when their career dissipation lights are blinking at them.
Superpowers don’t grant immunity from the chain of command.
They do if you enslave the minds of everybody above you, in the chain, and they worship the ground that you tread on.
Or so I have heard.
I thought any predilection for gambling would disqualify ANY applicant for ARChon membership.
Check this guy out…
https://www.yojoe.com/images/resize/w/MAX/filecard/83joes/ace.jpg
Not necessarily. The GAO only recently (just this year, in fact) ordered the DoD and the Coast Guard* to start screening for gambling disorders, because gambling addiction has become a problem in the military.
What is happening is that soldiers (most of whom are Type A personalities, drawn to risk and adventure) turn to gambling to recreate the adrenaline rush they get from combat, only to end up losing most of their paycheck. The military has coin-operated gambling machines on over 100 of our overseas bases, which brings in $100 to $150 million a year, but none of it goes towards therapy for gambling addiction. Instead, it is used to supplement the Morale, Welfare and Recreation budgets of local bases, supporting swimming pools, movie theaters, and concerts. That’s a lot of movies and popcorn.
There are some reasonable arguments for having gaming machines available on base in locations where similar gambling is illegal off the military installation. Occasional gaming can be fun and relaxing for troops and their families. Officials state that on-base machines offer higher payouts than off-base machines. Gambling on-base can be safer than off-base gaming locations, and there is a decreased chance that a problem gambler will do something illegal if they are within the grounds of the installation. Also, gambling machines do not violate the rules of fraternization between officers and enlisted.
On the other hand, easy access has been proven to increase the number of problem gamblers. If they got rid of the machines, there would still be some with serious problems who go off base or get involved in back-room poker games. But just having them there, you get some people addicted who never would have had a problem otherwise.
* The Coast Guard does not fall under the jurisdiction of the DoD, which is why I had to specify “the DoD and the Coast Guard
Well thought through.
The UK used to have a sensible policy in that gambling establishments had to have their windows obscured, and be pretty low key. There were a fair number around, for those who wanted to find them. But they did not attract in passing trade, because of these precautions.
Then, around the time that I emigrated, it was decided to weaken these restrictions. And, on top of that, to allow the building of massive super-casino complexes.
The argument being that it was wealth-generating. Which is bollox. It takes wealth out of the pockets of hard working people and hands it to casino bosses and their shareholders. With no provision being made for the huge number of addicts which were created as a result. Nor to deal with the crushing poverty that such can cause to the victims and, even more importantly, their families.
Should I get into power I would round up all those who make such selfish decisions, and have them shot. And they should be thankful that their families are not next to them.
Uh, Max also assaulted Harem. Like, this isn’t the military, it is soldier cosplay.
You can’t court martial Maxima, because she is more powerful than the rest of the military. What would you do if you found her guilty? Fire her? Then surrender to whatever military she joined?
You mean the Maxima Wedgie? That wasn’t assault, that was Corporal Punishment (get it? because Harem is a Corporal, and she got punished :P) for that stunt with Morph and Les in the ambulance
*rolls a drum*
Harem was also guilty of insubordination, to wit, panel 2, mouthing off to a superior officer:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/389
Looking back at the council pages, I just remembered that Sydney got that magical headband. That she doesn’t seem to be wearing now.
What ever happened to that?
Arc-Sparq take it?
Or did Sydney simply decide not to wear it while in the swimming pool, and hasn’t put it back on?
Occam’s razor, people. The theory with the fewest assumptions is most likely the correct one.
Don’t know if you’ve already seen this or not, but in chapter 21 of Challenge of the Deeps by Ryk E. Spoor, there’s a reference to Sydney.
I’m also getting hints of Dune from the extremely fiery worms that presumably still match the cinnamon-heavy spice palate of the restaurant.
Question is: how long was Crimson a human before she switched sides?
That was my thought. She was probably already underestimating humans while she was one, which is probably part of why she decided to turn.
Assuming vampires retain the same apparent age as when they were turned, I’d place Crimson in her 20s (or at most, her 30s) before she was turned. Then again, age can be deceiving. Cyndi Lauper is 64, but looks at least 10 years younger than that (IMO)…
Crimson and Scarlet both look like they were in their 20s when they were turned, imho.
I think my favorite part of this entire page is the big-sister moment in the first panel. Max isn’t actually trying to keep Syd restrained, but neither is she just letting her go — she’s making her wriggle free. It just has a great big-sibling-being-a-low-key-jerk-for-no-particular-reason vibe to it.
After being sideboobed Sydney got underboobed. I’m jelaous.
Only it almost looks like Sydney is trying to give Max a knee to the groin. Though I’m sure that is just her way of trying to wriggle out of Maxima’s embrace.
Gaining leverage.
Gaining leverage, to escape the cleavage :D
The caption on the previous one does help let us know that we didn’t miss anything that was printed.
Another good way to transition such a scene might be a bit cliché, but have Sydney joke in the last panel about maybe her last orb letting her turn into a swarm of bees and how that would let her sneak out of class through the air vents. Then have Maxima start the spiel about the defenses against such things, trailing off… …and resuming with the end of said spiel as Crimson wakes up in the next comic. Maybe have Sydney then lampshade it with, “Okay, okay, you said that already. The bat-swarm here is a good illustration of the point.” Only, you know, more like Sydney would say it, because I apparently can’t do her “voice.”
Sydney you will cease to be the Queen of Salt, if you loose all your money on speculative gambling. Only make a bet if you have a significant edge in predicting the outcome correctly.
In fairness, as Max puts a $5 cap on this kind of thing, it’d take some serious doing for Syd to get through her *whole* newly-embiggened bank account.
:-)
I always make my initial comment on first reading the comic, but before checking the blog.
That said it can get habit-forming. Maxima’s rules only apply on base. If Sydney gets addicted to gambling she could easily loose it all playing in casino games or elsewhere.
Not that I am worried about Sydney mind. She has her head screwed on right. So long as she keeps it in moderation and sticks to Maxima’s advice even when she is off-base.
Sydney strikes me as someone who wouldn’t gamble all that much aside from ‘friendly gambling’ things. Not ‘casino’ and bookies stuff. Most likely because, like a lot of us, she has a history of having to work really hard for a modest income, and gambling tends to be a huuuuuge money sink.
The $5 cap feels a lot like the show Ed where they had a $10 – bet you to do ‘something’ thing going back and forth between Ed and his doctor friend. They never would do more than $10, and the one time the doctor tried to bet less than $10, Ed balked at the notion of not doing a $10 bet.
*lose
I dunno — sometimes I feel like I’m loosing my money upon the world. “Go! Fly! Bring me books, board games, and fountain pen ink!”
One nice way to make the transition more apparent would be to have that “opening your eyes” blur & shadow around the edges, and fade away over those three bat-panels!
I think the way I would have handled the transition (speaking as someone whose writing doesn’t include pictures, and who has always had trouble with transitions himself) would have been to end last Thursday’s page with a panel captioned [ONE DRAMATICALLY ACCELERATED SUNSET LATER (for you guys, Sydney still has to go back to class)], depicting bats getting tazed. Then continue with Monday’s page as originally posted.
*de rigueur
And her hair suddenly became darker/pinker. Huh.
Five visible shared orbs around Maxima looks odd. If they are being bunchy because they are reaching equilibrium for the new noogie-two-person orbit, they’d still look different than that.
I don’t believe her; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEvuWjAZN3o
It is easy to spot when a politician is lying. Their lips are moving.
I’m sure that’s not universally true Yorp…
I’m sure there has been a politician or two that has learned sign language, after all.
And sometimes they nod or shake their heads. But in all, very few false positive indications occur.
I’m sorry but this is all indicating that Ingsol is the one betraying and doing all the backstabbing, since she is only a vampire at 40 years old I’m going to be a bit believing that she isn’t in on the whole scheme that is going on with that large blood rutiual.
No, she’s only been a vampire for 40 years. Obviously she was older than that when she got turned.
Er, let me rephrase. She’s been a vampire for 40 years. She was probably in her 20s, or even 30s, when she was turned. So she’s probably between 60 and 70 years old.
It is reasonable to discount most of the individuals who were sitting at the main Council table, given that they were all the target of the surprise grenade attack. The ones who we know to be involved were in a position of relative safety, up in the gallery.
Bear in mind that the grenade had mixed ordinance designed to inflict damage on a wide variety of supernatural creatures. About the only one who would have been safe is Icon, the animated armour. And he was actively fighting against the manikins.
As Ingsol is presently the leader of the Council (it rotates, so this is only temporary) it would not be in his best interests to have been involved in this action. The fact that they were able to reach the chamber, and launch a surprise attack, reflects poorly on his leadership. They knew a serious incident had occurred (the attack on the sigils), so should have improved their security.
Making him look bad is not therefore a sensible option for a career politician. And he has taken a very public stand against exposing the supernatural to the outside world. So Sciona’s apparent aims are very much at odds with his.
Of course there are always hidden motives and double-dealing, in politics. But if looking at the facts we know so far, I would not put Ingsol as a likely traitor to the Council.
Unless that was all part of his devious plan…
Some people sitting in the gallery were also in danger. Remember with the shell that Krona managed to disarm just in time? She was in the gallery, not down on the main Council table (despite Krona being her own ‘group’).
I hope we get to see Dabbler and Icon work together again, I like that pairing. He’s a character who couldn’t care less about her overtly sexual manner but who gets along well with her slightly Blood Knight personality. Plus he could be a mentor to her on swordsmanship.
Although the last time we saw Icon, he had partnered with Kat the Were-Bunny ( I mean Hare).
Dispite his “We are Monsters” speech back at the council meeting I strongly doubt that Ingsol is a traitor of any kind to be honest,At the very least hedve found an excuse to make sure Archons representatives werent at the meeting to remove any complications to the mass assassination plan that Halo managed to get a warning to Maxima about just in time.Ingsol strikes me as a pretty smart guy and he already knows that even Maxima on her own is enough firepower to take on a heavily armed legion with little effort.
Agreed.
Yeah, Ingsol is a good guy…err not a part of Team Sciona. If he was we’d call it Team Ingsol.
So… don’t know just how we’re picking in choosing with vampire abilities and weakness but just how does the “Vampire have to be invited” thing mesh with military protocol?
As Crimson got caught by automated base defenses it seems unlikely that the invitation is necessary in this setting. Given that she would have had to already be in the base to come across such a trap.* Unless someone has previously invited her (or Council members in general) to ‘come on over for a visit’.
* Archon would not set those up outside of the building, where any passing person might trigger it. Even if only in an area where it would take super powers to reach, if someone is outside they are not breaking any laws.
Not to mention that tasering somebody in mid-air, or on the ledge of a sky-scraper, would be likely to result in a fatal fall!
That also assumes that the ‘must be invited in’ thing is even real. In a lot of fiction, like Vampire the Masquerade, vampires can go wherever they want (although I believe some vampires have a Flaw that prevents that – I havent played most Role Playing games for a while. In others, like The Lost Boys and Buffy, the ‘must be invited in’ thing is enforced, most likely because you need a place where you can discuss stuff without vampires being able to attack, at least for storytelling purposes.
the invitation restriction is for private property while vamps have free access to public areas. this means private home no entry to building without invite, school whenever they want without a word, old style inn can enter the first floor to the tavern/dinning area but can’t go to the rooms upstairs without the tenant permission.
“You don’t have to be invited into a home if there is no home”. Except perhaps for Dabbler, I doubt anyone in ARC-SWAT lives there; or at the very least, like Sydney, probably has their own apartment or house that they use when off-duty.
Also, part of the ARC headquarters is open to the public; it’s just the secure areas that are off-limits without permission and/or an escort. Crimson wouldn’t need an invitation unless she was trying to get into someone’s quarters. Assuming, of course, that Dave is using that weakness at all.
Traditionally that only applies to a private residence. It might apply to the barracks portion or individual apartments, but not to buildings people do not live in.
As another web comic author (who is posting here today!) has pointed out, if dealing with unwanted vampires it is best not to put out a mat in front of your door with the word ‘welcome’ on it.
https://www.zebragirl.thecomicseries.com/comics/706
Well technically she has an open welcome to the place as long as its business related though in a lot of lore only outright homes need invitations for vampires to be able to enter and the invite doesnt necessarily have to be that of the home owner.Since Archon HQ is more of a semi open to the public heroic military base most vampires should be able to walk through the door(and get dogpiled by security) very easily.
That had nothing to do with vampire’s having to be invited, it was simply she attempted to sneak and got caught by the security net (literally)
Hey Dave, when you get the cast page fixed, will Jabberwokky appear there?
I’m assuming when its fixed, a LOT of characters previously not in there will now be in there.
I see that there is now a map of the Dyson sphere concentrations across the universe.
*strolls off whistling nonchalantly*
lol, So basically a lot of Type II civilizations out there?
Loves the page, hate the eyestrain, patiently awaiting high res patreon page/
When are you going to post on Patreon, Dave?
It just now occurred to me that the “OMG RICH” episode of this comic helps explain how comfortable everyone is with betting twenty bucks on stuff like this as, like, such a frequent, regular habit.
I’m pretty sure that on Ed, Ed and Mike wouldn’t be as flippant about their $10 bets every single day, sometimes several times a day back and forth, if they weren’t a lawyer (who was formerly a high-level corporate lawyer from a huge firm) and a doctor, but were instead like… a K-mart cashier and a bus driver. :)
And the only question I have is… what does that shirt say?
The Unholy Masquerade
New Zealand 20??
The latter half is a semi guess but the first three words are definate =)
I looked the name up and maybe its not a band shirt as i thought.
https://lastexittonowhere.imgix.net/uploads/catalogue/productimage-picture-the-unholy-masquerade-grey-marl-regular-t-shirt-5561.jpg
Never underestimate humans Crimson. You will never find a crasier bunch of animals in the galaxy.
For crying out loud what species goes jumping out of planes or swims whit big as predators for FUN!?
Also i just like ArtyD want to know what that shirt says.
In her defence any human who suddenly gains supernatural powers is probably going to instantly start underestimating everyone without them-after all they were human so in their heads an unpowered human should have a huge disadvantage against them right?Course the second you start down that road is the second you start getting sloppy,taking risks and making mistakes that youdve never done before n.n
Really feel like I missed a panel somewhere between the last page and the page before last
I suggest you go back and re-read the last page. The author has inserted a text box which indicates that time has passed. It is worth pointing out that the page in question is done from the perspective of Crimson, the vampire, as she wakes up groggily.
Whilst this page explains what happened prior to that, within the dialogue.
Im so happy that she didnt get caught with mere gas-Not as happy as the possibility of her bats form getting caught in blinds wouldve made me but happy nontheless…Oh god…..If one of the younger Vampires ever DOES get through security for a dramatic entrance Archon will get deluged with other baby vamps wanting to one up them!Is it wrong that i kind of want to see that happen now?
Well, they don’t breathe air anyway, so that wouldn’t be very useful.
Slight correction. They do not need to breathe, in order to live, as they are already dead. But they do need to if they want to talk or even just to pass for human.
Plus it is probably a hard habit to kick, after doing it for a lifetime. And, in the case of a career diplomat, it is useful not to kick the habit. All to easy otherwise to accidentally forget to breathe, when dealing with humans, and risk exposing their true nature..