Grrl Power #558 – Tennis elbow, Maxima style
So just a reminder, this was originally intended as a double page, so if it seems a little incongruous that Ingsol mentions the whole weakness aura thing, and then Maxima immediately starts dismantling it, imagine that it someone might mention it on the bottom half of this page, i.e. Monday’s.
Action pages are tough to comment on because not a lot happens in them. The comic book time dilation changes from “far slower than normal” to “one panel might cover a whole second if you’re lucky” Of course time is super relative in comics anyway. Action scenes in mangas tend to focus more on actual action, punches, kicks, straining neck muscles while they power up, whereas generally, American action comics tend to pack in a ton of dialog into fights. Spider-man is the most obvious offender, but lots of superhero comics have a lot of chatting and exposition. Well, manga has shitloads of exposition too, but they tend to pause the action while they do it. Sometimes they pause for an episode long flashback >cough< Naruto >cough<
I know, I know, some of you think Grrl Power has been in flash back since like page 6, but actually, those first few pages were a flash forward. Both of those things could be true to a time traveler. Think about that.
(I think it shrank since the last page. Drawing large things a consistent size is… not a skill I’ve mastered)
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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No weakness aura on Maxima…..
Which raises the question: does she not have a kryptonite equivalent, or does the weakness aura only cater for known threats and counters?
Or did she simply counter the weakness by switching up her power distribution
That is my guess: the weakness aura drains her strength, but it only drains what is in her strength pool. So if she pools everything in defense so long as she’s not actively attempting something else, and then puts a bunch to strength for one moment to attack and then back to defense, it does virtually nothing to her.
Oh, wait, she already just *does* that. So, yeah, not much effect for her, but only because of her natural rotation.
I think she’s just strong enough that, even with the weakness aura, she can dismantle this thing. Like, Half-Superman still beats Bone Robot.
Depending on the system being used, she might have a maximum she can put into her strength normally that is smaller than her pool of shiftable power, so when her strength is weakened, she just puts MORE of her pool into it.
Or she’s just so strong that giving her a -20 to Strength still leaves her with 80, in a D&D-like scale where 19 is “ogre strength.”
Or the weakness aura doesn’t work on non-magical superpowers.
My guess would be that the weakness aura only affects supernaturals. And the fact Maxima and Sydney didn’t even notice the aura existed is definitive proof supers aren’t supernatural.
That, or it keys off the same criteria the global SEP/notice-me-not effect does.
Nah, Syd’s immune due to her shield. It blocks auras, remember? And Max, I’d be willing to bet, is just THAT STRONG.
Ah – The Saitama Effect….
Right,
https://pre10.deviantart.net/8578/th/pre/i/2017/201/1/8/one_punch_fudd_by_andrewk-dbh12gf.png
To be fair, we might not have noticed any weakness effect on either Maxima or Sydney due to the brevity of the update.
And a weakness effect that doesn’t cause Sydney to drop an orb isn’t going to be very noticeable in any event.
I think sydney is Max’s kryptonite.
“Otherwise no nonsense, but finds herself continually amused by Sydney’s antics.”
Sound’s about right.
I’m guessing the ‘weakness aura’ only affects supernatural beings and not mutagenic or alien-based ones like Maxima or Sydney.
Syds in the bubble and the bubble was aggro aura proof so most likely its also weakness aura proof. Max most likely just moved her power around a bit to compensate. Considering what we have seen if Max Maxed out physialy power by zeroing out her energy blasts or something Maxes not full power blast back at the Demo on day one if she really maxed out phsical power she chould most likely send the golem into low orbit if she was’t underground at moment.
It would be “natural” to have the guardian able to handle the powers and defense they knew, which, unfortunately for them would be their own, and not be nearly as effective about others. So our girls may well be affected only a little or not at all by the weakness aura or other powers the guardian may have. Of course, some or most of the powers should affect most everything, and the ladies are probably not home free.
Or, and possibly even scarier, this is what Maxima can do even after being weakened…
Also, notice the heads up move by Halo there. She’s getting a grip.
It is a nice gesture, though not something new. She’s been using the lighthook to block, divert, and catch things since the restaurant / parking lot brawl.
Or, even weakened, she is still stronger than Boney anticipated (or just still stronger than anyone on the Council)
It did not seem to apply to Decollette either.
Sydney we can chalk up to the shield, as we know it blocks magic auras.
We only see it affecting Chorius (Monster/Other) and Ingsol (Vampire).
It’s affecting Decollette too. Note the lighting around her in panel 3.
Yeah, I’m thinking it’s something that only affects magic, not supers.
Wouldn’t be amazed if that was her holding back still…
Well Syd’s forcefield blocks auras so it makes sense that Maxima’s skin level forcefield would do the same (or at least mitigate it).
Meh, don’t assume that one force field is identical to another. Maxima wasn’t immune to the aggro aura of IGetStronger just because of her skin force field, after all.
Your comics evaluation is probably linked with “Talking is a free action.”
I’ve long since lost all track of flashbacks, flashforwards or anything else, and just treat it as an ongoing narrative
Oh wow, my prediction from last page was right, Maxima did deliver an uppercut to the bone golem. (I expected she’d take its head off, but close enough.)
She does seem to use the “uppercut to the arm” move as a common incapacitator. Remember Boiler Plate?
I had forgotten about that for a moment. I just wanted to see her punch the golem’s head to the ceiling.
Do they need / have permission to kill this from the sentient suit of armour?
Umm, Boney attacked them, and, so far, all we have seen is Maxi disarming it (literally)
Fairly sure Icon said that if a golem (or similar) attacks first, they have permission to finish it
Yes, but you don’t kill an ally who has been temporarily controlled by the enemy.
Unless you are part of SG1. Anyone taken over who isn’t a main character is cannon fodder. If you are main, they will try to take you alive to save you.
Its a Golem it can be fixed and removing the arm in defense isn’t killing it. She is effectively capable of preventing it from harming them without killing it wich is what she just did in theory.
Yup, this is known as the “Black Knight Manoeuvre”: remove the limbs and carry on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4
> … controlled by the enemy.
Nearly forgot the thought: How might Sciona having been able to affect the golem?
Many years ago Mad Magazine parodied Spiderman’s ability to speak several lines of dialog in mid jump.
Also…
If Maxima’s strength was reduced 90% she would still have plenty.
from post-restaurant cleanup, where she gauged the light hook for eydney, she could lift 35 ton prestressed concrete beams, at ten percent power she could still (at least) lift a fully-kitted out hummer without grunting. To her, it’s a chslk golem.
Chalk Golem, Tin Foil Robot, Cork Automata, Paper Mammet, Hamburger Homunculus…
Twig Treant, marshmellow cannon, left handed scissors, failboat, herd of cats… ok maybe she couldn’t stop the last one.
As the leader of Arc Swat she deals with a metaphorical one on a daily basis.
Damn, I can never get those tags right…
Attack, my furry tempest!
Talking is a free action.
Actually, I am wondering if Maxima’s golden skin protects her from auras. Like how Varia couldn’t get a read on Max due to her ‘screwy skin’. Since we now know that the skin is a separate thing from Max herself.
Nope, she has been affected by both Dabbles’ Lust Aura and Kevin’s Aggro Aura
“Since we now know that the skin is a separate thing from Max herself.”
You make that sound like the skin is a symbiote, it’s not, her skin has changed but it’s still part of her, just as much as her ears and hair
I see zero evidence to support the statement that Max was affected by auras previously. Max was aware of Dabbler’s aura, but that wouldn’t be hard, especially with a room full of people being affected. And at no point does Max show any reaction to the aggro aura. Given Kevin’s apparent ability to opt some people out of it, that doesn’t mean she was immune, but still.
So, you saying, when she blow his fricking arm off, she was acting normally?
None of them seemed to show a reaction to the aggro aura, Sydney only figured out something was up when she spotted Wart and Hiro attempting to turn each others nuts into butter
Well, she’s a combat pragmatist and nothing else she’d tried was working.
One blow (so far) in a high threat situation that was a blocking defense to a larger enemy’s surprise attack? I expect at least that much from a mall cop, much less a super.
She had already let Penny shot him in the eye with a sniper rifle, blowing has arm of seems like a logical way to escalate her atack.
That wasn’t his major aggro aura though. That only occurred once he had Max pinned down.
Author has stated that Dabbler and her fought to a stand still despite physical differences.
Which would indicate she is vulnerable to magic the same way Superman is.
It’s possible magic has a wide range in nature. Dabbler checking out Sydneys orbs is a good example. Lust / agro etc might effect her more than other magic types. The zero point TK field might act as a type of magic / magic barrier.
Did the author state this, or did Dabbler nudge Sydney when Maxima was relating that only two people had ever fought her to a standstill?
Because I recall the latter, but not the former.
I cannot recall the reference, but somewhere it was explained that Dabs put out so much offense that Max had to go full armor mode, rendering her unable to counterattack.
Maxima stated in the press conference that only two supers had ever gone toe to toe with her, one of which was dead, they assumed, and the other was on the team.
It was when Maxima stated that the other was on the team when Dabbler nudged Sydney.
That, doesn’t ring a bell with me. Or add up, either. We know that Maxima has a fairly high strength even without putting any of her variable power pool into it. I could believe that Maxima’s ‘standard’ strength or ‘standard’ power energy blast wasn’t enough to be effective against Dabbler. But to simply be unable to attack back at all? Full armor mode equals complete paralysis as far as simple moving, punching, or blasting?
But the cast page has been broken for a long time, so I can’t even refer to it to see what Maxima’s standard levels in all of her many different power areas are. If it even showed that in the past, which I don’t recall either.
I’m just going to assume that the aura is a mental block. It only affects the weak willed.
Vy do you tink it only vorks on the veek villed? Vampires control their subjects by willpower alone.
*villpower
Clearly it only vorks on people vith elongated incisors.
It’s not that her skin is separate it’s that she has a skin level forcefield over herself (and part of her clothes) so Varia can’t touch her actual skin to test it.
Makes me wonder if Max can voluntarily drop the forcefield for Varia to test. Though Max did state her skin is more something resembling glass than textured skin.
Just me who thought it was Sydney’s tentacle that broke the bone-dagger?
Did she instead form the tentacle into a kind of shield over Deco?
Smart golem: go for the one Council member not weakened by the aura
Not so smart golem: not noticing Maxi
I think it was just going for the closest member (she’s not doing a shield or anything so I think she’s depowered too) and yeah it looks like Syd is using her light-hook to shield Deco from debris to me too.
I guess just because Dabbler can do a shield doesn’t mean Decolette can. She might not have any direct combat powers.
Her non-combat powers however, are significant.
So in the explanation at the bottom, you mention how the first few comics were a flash forward. Then why does Sydney freak out about the light going through a forcefield and calls Dabbler after the fight in the carpark if she hadn’t played whatever super powered roleplaying game that is? It keeps coming back to me whenever I remember those first few strips.
Sure, because this was all planned out that far in advance.
Besides, this is Sydney.
But it means that chronologically that Sydney remembers something that hasn’t happened yet, calls Dabbler, and then when it happens in the future she doesn’t remember calling Dabbler about it.
The RPG at the start was after the Restaurant Rumble, whether you call this a ‘Flash Back’ or that a ‘Flash Forward’ depends on which side of the time skip you are on, it does not change when things occurred
That’s what I’m saying! The RPG happens after the phone call with Dabbler, but that phone call happens because she needs to know why light based attacks didn’t go through her shield.
Just because Sydney’s shield automatically protects against light based attacks doesn’t mean everyone’s will.
I think she called it out in the first few pages because she’d been thinking about it since the steakhouse fight. She knows a transparent shield SHOULDN’T block light. But hers is set up in a way that it can if needed. Her RPG teammate “Illumina” also mentions she can use a power stunt to make her shields opaque if needed. But “Kopykraut” can’t because he doesn’t know any of their power stunts.
True, but she wouldn’t expect light to go through the forcefield if she knows that forcefields DO block light based attacks, as shown by the fact that hers does. So now she’s starting an argument that force fields shouldn’t block light because hers does but hers is special, and she should have already had the call with Dabbler about some forcefields being able to.
It depends on what Dabbler told Sydney. During her brief call (would it be wrong to call it a booty call seeing what Dabbler was doing?) Dabbler told Sydney that there are some physical ways to prevent light going through shields. Note that she said “some”, from which I take that these ways are fairly specialised. So a normal shield will not do so.
And during a game where you try and get an advantage on an enemy who is as powerful as your whole team combined, you can conveniently “forget” little bits of knowledge to get the DM talk him/herself into a corner *whistles innocently* Nope I’ve never done that how dare you suggest it.
Other way around, she thought about a laser going through a see-through shield in her game because she had thought about it previously in real life and realized it would have to be an extra on the forcefield not something part of it.
Also knowing that her shield is laser-proofed does not stop her from rules lawyering when it comes up in a game.
And her point in the game, was that just because you can copy the powers doesn’t mean you automagically know all the tricks, such as making it opaque to block harmful light while still being able to see out of it (it blocks physical attacks, not light)
It doesn’t matter if the first few pages were a flashforward or everything else since is a flashback, either way it chronologically doesn’t make sense with the RPG being the latter one.
I’d say Sydney asking about it was more a reference/call back to those earlier pages, not an actual memory. Furthermore, just because Sydney’s shields work like that doesn’t mean other super’s shields, or those within a game environment, work the same.
Adding to this, it could even be argued that her saying the laser in the RPG should’ve gone through is because she knows her own shield has specific protections against such things, but the guy that copied the powers of the team couldn’t do powerstunts and thus couldn’t have made a transparent yet light-based attack blocking shield.
Just had a check back at the time she calls Dabbler. She references it in roleplaying game terms but doesn’t explicitly call out her future argument. It is mentioned in the call that her shields aren’t the low tier ones that wouldn’t affect light based powers, but she never references her phone call or any information from the call in her argument against KopyKraut.
Why would she reference the fight? Correction, why would she need to refer to it?
Like I said, the way her shields, or any super’s shields, work aren’t necessarily the same as how force fields work within the game. So why drag in a conversation with an outside source about real force fields (which didn’t go beyond “why didn’t a laser go through my transparent shield?” “There are ways but I am on top of someone now so…” “BYE! *click*”) while using fictional feats for a fictional force field are much more relevant?
It’s Sydney. She uses her knowledge of fictional feats and such as a baseline for her knowledge on super heroes and their powers.
The purpose of the game was to give the reader a false worry that Sydney was going to get laserred at some point, but when averted we would need an explanation as to why it didn’t happen, so therefore the call to Dabbler.
It is just that it has taken years to write the story up to that point so the worry wasn’t fresh.
So, sure during the game Sydney already knew that her real shield was laser-proof. Why should that stop her from rules lawyering to her advantage in the game?
You’d think that if it knew weaknesses it’d just blast each race with something fatal. Like sun beams at vampires. Unless it’s purpose is to disable and capture would-be attackers for later questioning.
Yeah… it may have shrunk a bit. It seems like it’s probably about 14-18ft tall in the last panel (hard to tell when Decollette’s mostly out of window). Previous page it’s probably around double that.
And how come the council members don’t have any way to avoid the effects of the veakness aura? They clearly know about the guardian and its capabilities.
Because… they weren’t prepared for their guardian to turn against them?
Maxi just mentioned in the page prior to opening the door about being overly paranoid
By the way, they didn’t need to worry about avoiding the aura, that’s why Maxi was there
If it ever came up against Spider-man it would use an ‘angst aura’ and Peter would stop fighting and just stand there worrying about how he could possibly believe he could measure up as a hero and that it would only lead to the people around him suffering.
Not every non-human has a kryptonite equivalent that insta-kills them. At least not in most mythology.
And it looks like it just prioritizes the closets threats first, and Max dismantled it before it could prepare anything .
Batman is immune to kryptonite, Daredevil is immune to smoke bombs. Deadpool is immune to death and here: Maxima is immune to an radial area-of-effect Magic Down debuff. Not that incredible.
ONE PUUUUUUUUUNCH!
MAXIMA SMASH!
It didn’t go into orbit. That was merely a standard attack.
actually Dave it didnt get smaller since last page it shrunk between panel 1 and 4 with a possible nice smooth intermediate step in panel 3 :P
I like to interpret panel 1 (and the last comic) as being enlarged for dramatic perception (like a dolly zoom)
So, can Halo kinda drop her shield for a sec then include ingsol and the other from the council in it? or would it be deemed as too dangerous?
Possibly, but it would take 2 instants – one for her to get over her attitude of “if you’re such a dummy you didn’t see this coming, then you otta get knocked about a bit”. Then an instant of action to include said dummies inside the shield.
Sydney only has human reaction times (albeit that once she has decided to act on something the orbs react to her command instantly). Whereas Vehemence (as one example) reacted faster than she could think, and was only saved because her shield was already up.
It is safer for Sydney to assume that this construct is faster than her, for the time being. However she has shown that she is capable of using the shield to block an attack, simply be moving in between the attacker and the victim. Plus she has made clever use of the tentacle as an improvised shield, in the final panel above.
So even without taking the risk Halo can provide useful defensive capabilities. Risking herself though could very easily be fatal, as Sydney is all too squishy without the shield.
If it was vital she may though, by using the tentacle as a shield. But then she is hoping that her tentacle force is strong enough to oppose the golem’s attack. Which may not be a survivable error if she guesses wrong.
I think once she is able to think about it she could ‘pre-plan’ a blink/resize so while she couldn’t let go and re-grab that quick she could resize it around people as fast as the orb can react. Might need to be a feature purchased for that.
How many tons would that bone arm weigh anyway? If less than 15 she’s got it covered.
It is not a matter of weight but of force applied. A ballerina on tip-toes actually exerts more force on the ground (per square inch) than a scout tank! Whilst the tank weighs tons, it is designed to distribute its weight over a large area with wide treads. Thus allowing it to travel over softer ground, amongst other benefits.
Plus you should look at the weight of the entire construct, rather than just the arm, as you can ‘put your weight behind an attack’ using an appropriate technique.
However the force that it can apply in a regular attack, even without doing that, is mostly dependant on its motive force. In a person it is their muscles driving that, in a robot their pistons or other device transmitting power from the engine.
For the construct it is magic. Which means that we have no realistic way of predicting just how strong a blow it can land. But do bear in mind that its sheer size indicates that the motive force must be considerable, in the first place, just to get it to move.
Finally we do have a means of estimating how strong it is. It smashed through a very strong vault wall, like it was tissue paper. You could drive a 16 wheeler truck at a bank vault, at 80 mph, yet find it bouncing off, rather than going through. Those can legally weigh up to 40 tons.
That is a very strong construct!
DaveB if you ever get around to publishing the comic in paper form, the first title is obvious.
But volume 2 has to be “Have we caught up yet?” To continue the flash back joke and memes/tropes/questions/debates of “when will we be reading real time?”
also 30% redux in size of guardian estimated. Write it off as when it powered up it sacrificed size or maybe that was another aura/ Aura of Titan which is made to awe and overwhelm anyone there not invited. They did that in a marvel comic, called it a PRESENCE ATTACK. Basically everyone’s combat was off because of it and how they each saw the size of the villain.
Mmm, maybe an aura that amplifies any existing weakness? Vampires have a bunch of those, for example. So Ingsol would be reacting like in daylight (or being affected by garlic or a holy symbol, depending on what things are detrimental to them in this setting).
Although Maxima’s super power can directly counter any weakness that her human body may be suffering from. Very little of her strength comes from her human muscles, and she can just dial up the strength as much as may be needed.
Even if the aura affects super powers it would need to be a five star weakening in order to negate Maxima’s strength potential.
But it is ironically exposing Maxima’s real weakness. If she has to put too much of her power pool into strength then her speed and defenses will be lower than she would like in such a fight.
No, Ingie and Chorus are reacting as though physically weakened, barely able to stand and dropping to one knee
Even if Maxi’s puts every spare bit of power into one area, she never goes below a 3 (or maybe a 2) in the others
My point is that a vampire in sunlight would be physically weakened (if we ignore the ‘bursting into flames’ side as not being a weakening but a damaging effect).
Likewise Chorius, as an alien, would clearly be weakened by the presence of Kryptonite (or Choriunite). And we see that even Super Man could not punch his way out of a paper bag, so that too is a physical weakening. Albeit one caused by a vulnerability to a specific substance.
Maxima’s weakness is that she always thinks that people don’t believe she can be smart or powerful because she is physically attractive. By magnifying that weakness she actually becomes more powerful in order to prove herself to others. Way to go, magical curse.
Heh.
I think it is like a depression ray. “Oh, why even bother?” and the horde falls down.
And that would work even against someone with a brain the size of a planet.
Oh good girl Sydney!
*wags tail happily*
Nice way to improvise a shield, using the tentacle!
“Both of those things could be true to a time traveler.”
… So what you’re saying is that you’re secretly the Doctor and this is just something you’re doing in your spare time?
Technically the doctor has infinite spare time, and if that was the case we should get more than 2 pages a week
We do, don’t you subscribe to the Alpha Centarai Alien Grrlpower or the Restaurant At The End of the Universe Ultimate Grrl Power? OK you need either a space ship or a time machine to get to them, as Dave would not break causality to provide them to muggles.
If you mean The Doctor (as in Doctor Who), then no.
He ages at a steady rate according to his own reference frame, has to regenerate roughly every 80 to 100 years that he experiences, so could very well “run out of time” and die from old age after running out of regenerations.
In “Heaven Sent” he was “reset” to when he first materialised in the teleporter, when it was powered by his artron regeneration energy as he died and vaporised his body.
Here is the biggest baddest guardian we could make with a weakness aura as a force-multiplier… And it’s about to be taken apart easily by Max… with Sydney following orders and doing crowd control.
Again, when Boney was created, someone like Maxi wasn’t even dreamt off in some succubae’s wetdream
I believe I first saw Naruto as an anime, when an acquaintance was watching it on television back in 2006 or so. I got in annoyance points by calling it “Neurotic”. The squeaky whiny voices complaining to each other…..
I can see Sydney turning it into mummy dust with the energy blaster. I can also see her blowing a hole in the cavern wall however many ffet below sea level they are. Everybody who’s alive, or close to it, better be careful.
I first saw Naruto as my son was a kid and he loved it. I liked the overall story line, but three episodes to exchange two blows in a fight really killed it for me – spending half of a season’s episodes for a fight on bridge that should have happened in under a minute.
And dialog that consists mostly of characters yelling each other’s name.
Ah, for the quick action of 1960’s Batman TV – “holy tits on roller skates, Batman!” biff! smash! pow! crunch!
Look, Satan on a pogo stick!
I had the same reaction to both Dragon Ball and Bleach. Massive numbers of episodes, but when one fight lasts, like 3 of them, and it’s one of the SHORT ones, I got a serious case of the “Meh, whatever” and went searching for something else.
I always figured that was supposed to be a running joke.
maybe not running so much.
I have the theory that the “Weakness aura” affects “magic” creatures. And ignores biological/others strength.
Or it affects everybody who does not have force fields.
Or, given that the ground near the targets seems to be glowing but not the ground near halo and max, it is an “aura” in the sense that it is AOE but still has to be targeted, and much like the veil supers are too specific to be written into the golems targeting parameters.
Can almost see Sydney thinking: “Don’t you idiots play mmos? Don’t stand in glowing circles during a boss fight”.
He he.
True.
Well, consider that it doesn’t affect the Orbs. Does that mean that the Orbs are not magic but technology or something else? Or that the Aura only affects ‘living’ beings and not objects?
It doesn’t seem to be affecting Sydney, though the shield should protect her from just about anything.
Any high enough level of science will appear as magic to someone that doesn’t understand it.
We know for a fact that the orbs are ‘something else’ as they manipulate reality at a fundamental level. Krona knows all about that and the orbs language controls reality even closer than her own considerable powers do.
If you wish to categorise things, Dabbler is a good example, as she has ‘magic’, ‘technology’ and ‘psionics’. The orbs are none of the above. The nearest general handle would be ‘divine power’.
Please be sure to prostrate yourself in her presence. You may only speak, in order to reply, if Halo addresses you. The suitable form of address is “Your Divine Mightaayness”.
How effective is that tentacle against that giant..thing???
It can load about 16 tons, that’s you get. Another day older….
and deeper in debt.
Not very. It may slightly deflect a blow, but would not be able to block it, for example. At best it would reduce the impact strength by 16 tons. Which is another way of saying ‘not a lot’, when you consider how much power it has in order to have smashed through a magically reinforced vault wall!
Subpage text should say “affect”, not “effect”.
Also, the golem shrunk because it’s concentrating.
Odd how would effecting a contemplative mood cause that affect?
yeah, that usually makes me just enough larger that I walk into things, stub toes, etc.
The BG did not shrink. It looks smaller because of the angle. It is leaning forward and throwing its whole body into the swing for maximum damage, which it ended up doing to itself when it encountered a wild Maxima.
Maxima used NOPE it was super effective
OK now. We are three panels into this encounter and the most loquacious character we have met (Choruis) has yet to have a single line. He needs to have a talk with his agent in the Comic Character’s Guild.
Eh, it’s more of a committee.
He never has spoken often. That is part of his modus operandi.
[spoiler]That is actor speak for ‘does not get many talking parts'[spoiler]
Nice teamwork. But why does Maxima look like she has a kanji tattoo on her punching arm? Did Dazzler draw some protective glyphs on her prior to this mission just in case?
Ummm … ahh … ” ” …
Dunno.
Zounds! Maxima has managed to unleash the infamous Kirby Krackles!
Time for some DIS-Assembling!
Large Knife Hand Bone Dis-Connected from the Wrist Bones
Elbow Bone Dis-Connected from the Arm Bones
Arm Bones Dis-Connected from the Shoulder Bones …
Dem bones, dem bones gonna rise again.
Dem bones, dem bones gonna rise again.
Dem bones, dem bones gonna rise again.
Bone to be wild.
After the guardian has been disassembled, its tune would be something like…
My bones lie under the ocean,
My bones lie under the sea,
My bones lie under the ocean,
O bring back my bones to me.
How it might sound, in German, with the wrong lyrics. sung by a little-known group called the Beatles. I think these guys might just make it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qh9YJO5k4GY
The guardian ignoring Maxima was a totally bone-headed move. [rimshot]
Yeah, but how was the guardian to know Maxima has skill levels in DIS-ARM? >crickets<
Have we seen yet what happens, to Halo, if she deliberately collides with something with the force field active? Does she feel the shock/impact? She didn’t feel Max’s punches in the boardroom… Also, if she expands the force field, do people originally outside get pushed away or brought inside? I’d think she could seriously hamper the guardian’s attack, maybe pin it, just by pre-empting most of the available space with her force field.
No but we have seen Halo loose her footing when Vehemence yanked on the tentacle. Possibly psychosomatic possibly indicative that such things can affect her.
I think it is likely. We have not seen anything to indicate that the shield orb provides inertial dampening
Sydney was not in motion. If she had been flying at Maxima and was brought to a dead stop by a punch that would be a useful comparison, as it was the example is not comparable.
Neither. From past behaviour (such as the shield being smaller in a confined space, and not being a perfect sphere when a table was too close to it), I would suggest the expansion would stop when it reached a solid object (including a bone golem). The table was not enveloped in the shield, so I do not expect that it would go around the golem.
Only if it was erected with an obstacle in the way (as opposed to being raised when small and then expanded) would that obstacle be brought inside (or to be precise the shield would be raised beyond the obstacle). We saw that behaviour when Halo tried to raise the shield but Shadow Boxer’s arm was in the way.
That is a valid tactic. Maybe not quite as effective, as you envisaged, given the constraints I have outlined. But a large creature would be hampered more than a smaller one, so that is a valid tactic.
It would run the risk of pushing allies into the water though. Where they might drop below whatever protective magics stop the pressure from affecting people. That would likely be fatal for some of them.
I should have said ’cause allies to fall into the water’ as they would not be pushed, if my interpretations are correct. But if they suddenly found the shield pushed up right to their nose they may take a step back or simply loose their balance.
Whilst they would not have been close to the edge earlier, I am sure some will have backed away from the golem and exploding rubble, from its entrance. So some may be precariously positioned about now.
There didn’t seem to be any ill effects from taking a chunk out of a billboard while flying. Didn’t even notice it until afterwards, even. Granted, a billboard isn’t very far up the scale when it comes to damage resistance, but it does at least give us a point on the scale to work from.
Oh good, Sydney is on the ball with protecting people and Max isn’t playing around with tearing that thing up. Now that the weapon arm is down, time to take out the head.
Or the aura only affects “magic powered” creatures, and neither Max nor Sydney are “magic powered” such as to count.
Sydney’s shield gives her immunity to such aura’s (as proven with Vehemence’s). Whereas Maxima has five star strength. The weakness debuff would need to also be of five star strength, in order to bring her down to human levels of strength.
Imma be honest, it took me three whole looks to figure out that Maxima was even in that last panel. Her jacket just blends in.
Shows that it is doing its job.
Probably the weakness aura is attuned to the known supernaturals in the same way as the spell that hides them from everyone else is. Thus, it likely affects the team less, as they’re not among the largish set of things it was designed to cover, and reducing a character like Max’s power by 2 or 3 times isn’t even going to be noticable in most situations. Particularly since she can stat dump on the fly.
That and Sydney’s shield has been shown to block magical auras.
Page 5, actually. ;P
Hey don’t feel bad about the consistent size thing. Girl Genius has been going since, like 2002, and Phil Foglio STILL hasn’t mastered it. Actually, at this point, I think his attitude is more like “ehhhh… who cares?” Actually Phil has been around WAY longer than that, so yeah. draw it how you like it.
keeping scale consistent, even body parts of a single character, is extremely difficult. I cut him some slack on this one.
The EGS guy is really good at it but he puts a lot of work into it and pretty much builds his backgrounds in CAD first then scales his drawing until it’s the right height for that position. Lots of work just on that one part in other words.
I had the same reaction to both Dragon Ball and Bleach. Massive numbers of episodes, but when one fight lasts, like 3 of them, and it’s one of the SHORT ones, I got a serious case of the “Meh, whatever” and went searching for something else.
Sorry. Ignore this. It was supposed to be a response to something further up.
I feel the need to reply to this with my evidence to contradict your proposal with my own very long and contrived explanation involving many references to old fables and previous events and interpersonal conversations that happened with people you may not be familiar with.
1. I need to build up my energy to reply
Hrrrrrrrrrrr.
Hrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Hrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
(veins pop out)
HRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
2. Flashback
Did I ever tell you about the time I……………..
3. I need to now stand here and describe my abilities in great detail and how your abilities (also described in great detail) are no match for me.
4. Sorry. I am out of time for this reply. I will have to complete it in the comment section of the next comic.
you forgot to inarticulately yell the name of the last ally to get hit.
“I know, I know, some of you think Grrl Power has been in flash back since like page 6, but actually, those first few pages were a flash forward.”
Well, damn. Now I’m going to have to fix the tvtropes page.
Heh.
Max does have kryptonite… as the artist says, “Drawing large things a consistent size is… not a skill I’ve mastered” so Max is continually having to change her bra size.
I’m fairly sure brass irritates the heck out of her.
Only if they disagree with her leadership style. Fortunately the one that counts the most is General Faulk, and he has her back.
Not that I envisage he would fiddle with her bra strap.
If the first panel was zoomed out a bit to include Halo and Max and the full golem, it would be a great wallpaper.
Ahh. The “SKREEEN” noise must be taken from an elementary school recital. Anyone who is not absolutely tone-deaf (i.e. not a teacher or a parent of one of the performers) will be broken.
I like how Syd’s very good at covering Maxima’s back. She’s very good at that lately.
Though I would note the important detail….. Sydney is getting more and more detached from the “reality” of things lately. Feels like she is slowly starting to view the world more like a comci book or a story. She’s a bit disconnected on a few specific subjects. Probably because she started at max level with her partners, and her shield.
She best be careful to not zone out on reality too much like a game.
Shrewd observations.
It is a useful defense mechanism, to stop herself from being overwhelmed by the severity of situations they find themselves in. Whenever I break bones, or suffer other severe injury, I turn to comedy to keep myself functioning. Clearly Sydney makes heavy use of comedy to cope with stressful situations.
Viewing herself as a character in a comic, or a movie, is a way of disassociating herself with any trauma and handling any other intense emotions. Whilst that is a useful mechanism, to keep functioning in a crisis, she will need to work through the issues when there is suitable downtime.
We can see, from Sydney’s extreme reaction to Harem’s sexual harassment, at the pool, that she is fragile underneath her bravado.