Grrl Power #568 – Customer service with an evil smile
I can just imagine Sciona waiting on the phone to set up an appointment;
“If you’re calling because you suspect the company’s CEO of planting a mole in your organization, please press 1. If you’re calling because the company’s CEO was secretly trying to date you under the guise of business meetings, please press 2. If you’re calling about the company’s CEO undermining the political structure of your country and running it from the shadows, except he constantly tells everyone about it, please press 3. If you’re calling because the company’s CEO has horned in on your daring heist, please press 4. You have pressed 4. Transferring you to your childhood home, where the company’s CEO is currently banging your mom!” >dialtone<
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Heh heh heh… Legoland in bare feet…
Superman: *grabbing his foot* “OW! AAAAAAAAAHHHH-OW!”
Batman: *rolling on the ground, holding his foot* “How does it hurt YOU!?”
Superman: “I don’t know! They’re Legos! They hurt EVERYBODY with bare feet!”
the Lego video games set in the DC universe, specifically the Batman ones, feature Kryptonite blocks
Not me, I grew up in a room littered with Lego. It wasn’t until I saw the meme about how much they hurt that I realized why my parents were more annoyed about my Lego messes than any other kind.
Last week, was watching some comic funnies, and at least one featured Blatman placing a Kryptonite Lego for Soups to step on :D
Hopefully that isn’t happening to Lego Batman and Superman, they’d be doomed.
So very, very true!
Legos are magic, obviously.
As can be seen when with a Lego lass transformation sequence.
Ordinary schoolgirl, if a bit blocky one minute, then some sparkles, twirling around in midair and inspirational music, and she becomes an effeminate-looking elven archer!
It’s because Supes can’t handle magic, and legos are filled to the brim the magic of childhood imagination and OCD levels of design.
Legoland doesn’t have lots of loose blocks. They have all been assembled into models. At least that is what I remember from my one visit many years ago. But maybe I’m wrong.
Superman and Batman messing around Legoland, would be like King Kong and Godzila having a bit of rough and tumble in New York. The blocks might start off assembled…
It took me a moment to figure out the logo on his business card for Machina Industries. It is an inverse ‘M’ overlaid onto a big black ‘I’. (anything symbolic about his symbol being phonetically a ‘black eye’ ?)
We have ‘Deus CEO’ under it. Still no idea if it is his first or last name.
I can’t make out the text under his finger.
Only name. Like Madona. Or, given that he uses it in conjunction with his title, Pope Francis.
Maybe with a bit less of the religious trappings though.
I believe his name is Deus X, as in Deus Ex Machina (God in the machine, when an author makes something that normally can’t happen to happen to solve a problem)
No, it’s “god from the machine”, dates back to ancient Roman or Greek plays, where a character depicting a god was lowered down to solve whatever problem the other characters were facing, like the reason Ninja wear black goes back to old Japanese plays, where you had stagehands dressed all in black who moved set pieces during the play: you knew one of them was playing the role of the Ninja, but you never knew which one until their sudden reveal
Looks more like a black column than an “I” to me.
what do you mean by inverse? do you mean upside down? cuz it could just be the way he’s holding it
Ahh, with you asking that question, I finally managed to interpret what O.B. Juan said, enough to see his point. The logo looks like a white “M” in front of a black “I”.
Surreptitiously though it is purely a plausible-seeming excuse to have a Dark Reliquary Artefact pillar as his logo.
I think the ‘I’ is actually supposed to be a pillar. Like the ancient greek ones.
so some of the artifacts are like that vehemence guy then? that’s cool
huh so the field only lets organic matter through but it kills what it touches, achilles would be the obvious solution but I feel like sciona is going to use some form of blood magic and deus is just going to direct-teleport it
Kick someone in, animate their corpse. :P
Haha, well that wouldn’t work that well because you’d need an extra mook per object.
Well, the T-1000 got around the need for “only living things” being able to time travel by wearing an organic, living cover (which is why all time travelers in Terminator arrive naked). Deus could totally cover a bot with “good enough” life support and wrap it in (someone else’s) skin. Don’t know if it would work, but it’s an idea.
Sciona was probably going to use “living blood” and then puppet the dead blood to get the artifact out. Blood being her thing.
Where did the shopping cart go? It isn’t even present as part of the whole dramatic silhouette thing they are doing in panel 3.
Shopping trolley space. Like hammer space, but bigger.
Note the big yellow portal. Until tensions have eased off the trolley is safer on the other side.
That and Dave forgets stuff at times. Especially for something that is a one off-gag. But it is easy enough to rationalise.
Oh, and the general’s glasses? Those were hammer-space glasses, in the literal sense. They only appeared for the purposes of the gag. The shopping trolley is a similar item. Although it may be a running gag, as it would be hilarious to see Deus doing a supermarket sweep, with artefacts.
Given the shopping list in panel 1, a supermarket sweep seems very much on his mind.
Maybe a good idea would be for them to scoot through the portal and let it close behind them. Deus and his goons can die from starvation and they can come back and gather their objects in peace.
He has Opal with him. Opening portals is her schtick.
maybe it’s running-very-fast-gag and it scooped out of sight at the first hint of danger, Sir Robin-style?
The same place the general’s Dramatic Glasses went ;)
Another continuity issue. In the last panel two pages ago we see the mask and cube separated by 6 columns between. Now they are only have 1 column between them.
I see you are unfamiliar with magical architecture. Things can change.
Heh, that insult has to rank up there alongside <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAy4zULKFDU"this :D
Ohj yeah, I forgot it add it in that long shot.
I’ll just assume for simplicity’s sake that it’s hidden behind the mass of idiot calling itself Deus.
That mass of idiot is literally smarter than most of the people in this webcomic XD.
Eh… not that smart. The IBTC could beat him with one eye tied behind their backs.
Nah, he just gets enough plot shields to make Batman look like a third stringer during a Marvel event. Basically everyone is just weirdly convinced by everything Deus says and never counteracts.
If you want to claim that you should check your memory better. Sydney has challenged him (over the ‘replicas’ in his weapon display). Not that she was in a position where she could socially do much about it, beyond just calling him out, in her own unique way. After all he is the CEO of a major company (and one that is very important to Archon).
Note though this is distinct from your claim. Sydney believed he was bullshitting, and seemingly justifiably so as his weapons collection included Klingon weapons, and stuff from a number of alien movies, and so
Here we can see that, despite Sydney not believing Deus, ironically his collection may actually all be originals.* This means that the more people learn about Deus the more likely they are to believe he is telling the truth, even if seeming to make an impossibly outrageous claim. Something I love to do myself.
Even more significantly though the dictator that he challenged refused to believe that Deus could pose a threat to him. Which proved to be a fatal mistake.
There is no plot shielding going on. Deus is clever enough to make sure that (if he wants to convince someone) he puts them in a position where they can see they have no choice. Killing the dictator was a way of making his son realise that he had to cooperate or die. Here Deus has caught Sciona totally unprepared, with no intelligence regarding Deus’s capabilities, nor those of his companions.
However he has taken advantage of the fact that one of his mercenary assassins is working for Siona now. She has been present when Deus has pulled this kind of ploy before (confronting a powerful leader, face to face). Meaning that if Sciona does look like she will kick off something, Cthillia will be likely to advise against that.
For the very good reason that she knows Deus will have the means of killing Sciona and anyone else who opposes him. In these circumstances, anyhow. Which is all that counts at the moment.
There is no plot shield going on. You simply fail to appreciate the dynamics of the situation.
* Albeit that for the truly fictional weapons, they would just be the original props used in movies. Some of them though it may turn out that the ‘fiction’ is actually based on a genuine race and Deus has got real examples of their weapons.
Did anyone else remember Russia’s April Fools joke at their embassies?
“You have reached the Russian embassy, your call is very important to us. To arrange a call from a Russian diplomat to your political opponent, press 1.
“To use the services of Russian hackers, press 2.
“To request election interference, press 3 and wait until the next election campaign.
“Please note that all calls are recorded for quality improvement and training purposes.”
That’s an April Fools’ joke? I’d have assumed that under the Putin (or any other neo-Red-Communist) regime, that would be standard.
its valid aprils fools go actually considering mountain of lies MSM spweded in late 2016/early 2017, basically poking fun of democrats and msm that run on far-left code
Calling Putin a communist is an insult to communists.
A defense that is probably ridiculously hard to set up and ridiculously easy to bypass. A fresh-cut tree limb would work nicely – takes a while to die so you have time to use it, and turns into a wood stick when used. If simply whacking the artifacts out of the field wouldn’t work, most of them appear to have holes or gaps you could put a stick through to apply leverage.
On a different note, I would really like to know what the Rubik’s Cube artifact does.
I think that’s the Lament Configuration from Hellraiser?
May I propose the Buddy Brick Configuration. A Hell-cube spawned as a buddy brick from Sequential Art. Turning the overwhelming desire, of the mundane buddy brick, to hug it and fall asleep, into a similar urge to grasp it and solve the puzzle.
Yup, definitely the Hellraiser cenobite-summoning puzzle box. And the green mask is Loki’s Mask from… well… The Mask.
There’s a Hellraiser box but next to it is a Rubik’s Cube (can see it better in the previous comic).
the rubiks cube is the MacGuffin from the masterpiece “Dude Where’s My Car?”
Unless the field not only keeps non-living matter out, but also keeps non-living matter in. Good luck getting your non-living artifact through the field with your now non-living stick which might now be stuck within the field as well.
…only can Deus make offering a business card look intimidating. :/
It is especially intimidating to someone used to using magics of Sciona’s kind. Words have binding power and agreeing to his proposal, by accepting a written document he offers, can have all sorts of nasty strings attached.
Deus is playing on many levels.
Emphasis on playing. Deus enjoys what he does. Doesn’t mean he’s not good at it, just that he enjoys it more than most. :)
… Also, I love that as Deus says that, there IS an artifact in the foreground quivering and looking at them.
An Eye and Hand of Vecna would be most happy to be worn by them.
Just be careful about the Head of Vecna if you come across it… its deadliness rivals that of the dreaded Gazebo (if you understand this then like me you know entirely too much about D&D in-jokes).
*attacks the Gazebo, without hesitation*
It’s… a Gazebo. It doesn’t respond to your attack.
Looks like our only choice is to decide who gets to use the Head of Vecna. I am already cuddling this buddy brick, so I guess you get to have the honour.
*points paw at convenient guillotine*
To be fair, the Head of Vecna is easier to recover from than the Pink Fuzzy Bunny Suit of Invulnerability (Less famous than the head of Vecna, so description is quoted)…
Easy peasy, get an ascetic character into that suit (with vow of poverty = no items and does not need food).
Especially an Exalted Beguiler, also with vow of nonviolence.
So… Cha main stat (to direct bunnies), +4DC to all spells, know a wide variety of Illusion and Enchantment spells (most of them don’t require Cha checks), does not need equipment or food, and then immune to harm.
Yes please.
The vow of poverty would be broken by the suit itself, tho
Oh noes, he will loose all his powers and be defrocked.
Oh, hang on, that solves the suit problem.
Int not Cha is the main stat for beguilers. Part of why they are so good.
Wow, great item for a necromancer. All you need is:
Access to the Magic Jar and Animate Dead spells.
The Silent and Still metamagic feats.
1 barbarian.
Step 1: Cast magic jar and possess the barbarian.
Step 2: Cast Animate dead on your corpse and instruct it to play whack-a-mole.(technically unnecessary, as your con is voided by undeath, but it is the thought that counts.)
Step 3: Return to your recently revived and now permanently inviolate body that lost the memories of a seconds-old undead.
So there is a weapon that Sciona has here. The Council is going to know darn well that she is behind the break-in. The Council will have no idea that Deus grabbed some items…. UNLESS SHE TELLS THEM.
Sure, let Deus steal some shit. Video him doing it. Send the video to the Council with a note about what happened. Splitting their attention can only be to her benefit, and even if they suspect she’s lying they’ll have to at least consider the possibility she’s not and investigate.
That is very powerful, and can be used for more than just diverting attention, if she thinks of it fast enough it would make a good bargaining chip now.
Offset by the risk that he may decide that killing them all would eliminate the problem. And he does have the tactical advantage of knowing all about them, whilst Sciona knows nothing about his team.
So maybe your route is the safer one. If they happen to have suitable equipment on them. Smart phones may not have been on their ‘must have’ equipment list, one mile underwater, at the edge of the continental shelf (i.e. far away from the nearest coastal cell-phone tower).
Plus using such would require skill to avoid being spotted. Get it wrong and refer to the ‘getting killed’ section above.
Cthilia knows how Deus operates, having been on his team in such circumstances before. She knows that he will have means to kill them if he has to.
Oh goody… I’ve been interested in what Vale can do since she was first introduced, and that sounds like a big juicy hint! Something related to what the Epimorph actually does… ;)
Mmm, possibly, but not necessarily. The key part is just that Deus believes Vale to be on a par with an arch villain, even enhanced with the powers of a major artefact. But where you are right is that it narrows down the nature of her power to being something which is rock to the Epimorph’s paper.
So not related to the Epimorph but rather the Epimorph’s nemesis (given the ‘might’ that Deus emphasises).
Not quite. Deus is *saying* Vale is on a par with an arch villain. But what he says, and what he believes may be quite different things, and it’s entirely possible he’s bluffing.
I did stipulate ‘…Deus believes Vale to be on a par…”. As for the bluff, I am just going by past performance. We have not seen him bluffing. Most significantly, in the showdown with the tyrannical dictator, in his own HQ, Deus had the forces to back up his play.
He made an offer, it was refused, and he took out the dictator. Making the same offer to his son, it was accepted, and Deus honoured the deal.
A bluff is something a wise person only resorts to when there is no other option. Deus knew the challenges he faced, before stepping through the portal, and has the resources to ensure that he could overcome them.
Yes, it could be a bluff. But if I was at that table I would not call him on it. Not when the price to see the cards was death.
True Deus bluffs quite often. But I don’t think he would bet his life on a bluff.
Or maybe just power levels. I mean Dabbler is about a match for Max and their powers aren’t related.
Ahh but Dabbler is actually rated far below Maxima, in power (seven stars to nine). It is just that Maxima is vulnerable to magic (of a non-physical nature).
To put it in perspective if a mountain is causing a problem Dabbler can put a hole through it. Whereas Maxima could either flatten it or pick it up.
We would expect one of the more powerful artefacts, in a vault full of the most apocalyptic devices known, to be at the upper end of the scale of dangerousness. Whilst it is possible that Vale is on a par with Maxima (and good at keeping that secret), it is more likely that she is lower level, but adept at killing mages.
She could be cybernetically enhanced but human.
Please remember to cast your vote and carry on keeping the comic in the number one position, for the rest of the month.
Not to mention seeing Maxima and Sydney in bath-towels.
If we are taking bets on the ‘evil artifact extraction’ pool, here is my guess.
Deus already has one of the diabolical duo of Vektor and Opal. They just need the other one to stroll through the portal and use his TK abilities to ‘yoink’ the items from their pedestals.
Gravity, or moving the portal, will do the trick just fine. We saw Opal pull that trick with the unconscious bodies.
Concentrating on how to get different types of matter in, distracts from the fact that energy clearly has no problem (the light illuminating them being a case in point).
But, even putting that aside the portals probably just fold space, negating the whole problem.
But if non-living matter cannot pass through the field… does that include the artifacts? Using telekinesis to lift them out seems to obvious as a workaround. Opening the portal inside the field, though… yeah, that might be plausible enough.
A wormhole (which is what the portals probably are) connect two disparate points in space. You do not travel through the intervening space, to get from one to the other. Therefore the artefacts would not pass through the field. Rather they would bypass the field.
By analogy Opal is not bothered about walls because her portals do not require her to go through the wall, she just steps through a portal, and arrives on the other side.
Penultimate panel;. I bet a tray of Yorpie Sneax™ that DaveB either used Jeremy Clarkson as a reference, or had him in mind!
Of course, this COULD be settled in court…
It would take a seily court to believe any of this.
Or he’ll pull a Xanatos: Bugger what’s In the afield, my real treasure is that death field itself!
Heh.
Yea, not to mention the disintegration rays, other technomagical turrets, the bone golem with the weakness aura and the pressure negating magic of the vault itself.
Sod the cursed artefacts that want to acquire new slaves. There is enough weird technomagic in here to kickstart whole fields of science and magic!
There ARE probably more powerful artefacts there but I agree, field which kills anything it touches is fantastic weapon. Of course, in reality there would be limits to it’s power.
I think a fanfic writer has gotten a job at the BBC and is making shit up.
dunno, Criminals have pulled stupider stuff. ever hear about that guy who tried to rob a convenience store with a pair of shorts and a T-shirt on his head as a mask, with a leg and arm hole for his eyes? guy literally got laughed out of the first store, managed to rob the second one…. and was still wearing the idiotic disguise when the cops bagged him about a block away.
Ever hear about the shoplifter who tried to smuggle a frozen chicken out of a shop by placing it under his hat, but passed-out while in line at the checkout (where he’d have paid for some cheaper item) because its coldness had slowed the blood-flow to his brain?
^_^
Sounds like he had a brain blood-flow problem before the stunt :P
I like the fact that even Vale’s eyebrows are pink. Yes, just noticing, but…
Does the carpet match the curtains? Or is she Brazilian?
Super, or not super, that is the question.
Most hair stylists will refuse to dye eyebrows due to their close proximity to the eyes and the risk involved. A person’s eyebrow color, as a result, is nearly always their natural hair color.
Perhaps she’s Pixel’s sister or cousin and the color is natural?
It’s harder to tell what’s natural color than you think.
I’ve had guys at nudist camps presume my hair was naturally blond because my hair everywhere matched color. As if you couldn’t buy two boxes, or as if they didn’t include enough for someone with long hair in one box, or that the dye wasn’t formulated to work on all kinds of hair, or as if someone couldn’t dye hair one color and their beard another.
Or, as far as eyebrows, they could dye it themselves. Or they could use eyebrow pencil to mask the color with a color that matches their hair. Or pencil-change the color of the eyebrows to something equal or darker because pale eyebrows don’t register emotion as well and people automatically presume you’re surprised (also a hazard of too much botox). Or they shave them and put leedle teeny brow-wigs on in the right color.
‘Most’, not ‘all’
I am crushing on Vale so hard…::sigh::
Be careful that she doesn’t crush you, into an icky-pink paste :)
She does have a very pretty face and an impressive physique. Plus there would be an appeal to having a bodyguard girlfriend, capable of taking down an Arch-Mage.
Shouldn’t the Epimorph and some of the other artefacts be in the Who’s Who? They got their introduction, and now they have their talking part. Whispering in the back of the head counts, right?
That eye in the doom-glove reminds me of that demon in the sword from Wakfu that possessed stuff once released(mostly the wielder)
My first thought went to Wakfu as well and I wondered if it was a reference. But I thought about an actual glove with eyes also shown in the series, though after looking it up it turned out that glove had the eyes elsewhere.
The hand and eye of Vecna matches that, in every regard. The appearance is correct. The fact that they are artefacts likewise. Plus being corrupting ones that would try to whisper in the back of the mind.
Not to mention their heritage, in the annals of roleplaying games, as one of the earliest pair of artefacts created in the genre. And finally they are totally evil, so would be deserving of their place in this vault.
Afraid not. The hand of Vecna is a HAND. This is clearly a gauntlet. Also it has screws on the sides which the hand lacks. Finally the eye is on the wrong side of the hand as all all depictions eem to have it in the palm.
OK, amend that to ‘the cybernetic hand and eye of Vecna’.
The dude has to get with the modern era, after all. ;-)
Wow, great item for a necromancer. All you need is:
Access to the Magic Jar and Animate Dead spells.
The Silent and Still metamagic feats.
1 barbarian.
Step 1: Cast magic jar and possess the barbarian.
Step 2: Cast Animate dead on your corpse and instruct it to play whack-a-mole.(technically unnecessary, as your con is voided by undeath, but it is the thought that counts.)
Step 3: Return to your recently revived and now permanently inviolate body that lost the memories of a seconds-old undead.
Honestly the smartest thing Sciona could do would be to take the business card and simply leave it on the floor of the vault just before she leaves.
I dunno, having her fingerprints on it does prove that she was in the vault, but doesn’t incriminate Deus in any way. Business cards get handed out. There are probably hundreds, just like it, in buildings all around the business world. So the most it would do is indicate that Sciona wishes to implicate Deus.
Letting Archon know that she has become enemies with Deus is giving them unnecessary information.
All the fingerprints would do, would solve a missing persons case (ie the body Sci-fright is now using), would not indicate Sci-fright at all
Heh. Yea, I had not considered that.
I want to see Sidney get her hands on The Mask.
what did the mask do to deserve that?
It agreed to appear in a Jim Carey movie.
Fair argument
Completely forgot to make this joke:
He’s making a list, and checking it twice, making sure all the monsters play nice! Smug Deus is coming, to town!
*wags tail appreciatively*
Honestly surprised no-now has noticed THE MASK just chilling in the background there, anyone got their hands on THAT this would turn into a very interesting advent! >:D
Except that it was mentioned by dozens of people both this page and the previous one.
Small correction, it was not visible the previous page, but it was the page before that.
No one reads the comments, that’s why things get spotted ‘first’, many many times
I now suspect that Deus is Dave’s Mary Sue. He’s snappy, which is nice, it’s hard to make a Mary Sue snappy.
Mary Sue is a term created to bully a person. It continues to be used to bully writers of all sorts. I is vaguely and nebulously defined, so is ideal for a troll, as they can throw it in casually, and it will spawn masses of debate as to what the meaning was.
Piss off.
I think Mary Sue has a few definitions. The simplest one is just short hand for an author insert. Of course the original Mary Sue was a preposterous super human that out Spocked Spock and made out with a bunch of canon characters and all that, so there’s that definition, and then a third is a way of accusing a character of being stupidly over powered or over capable, which is usually a sexist slam on female characters, but I’ve also heard it suggested that James Bond or Batman are Mary Sues.
I think context plays a roll. I mean, it’s real easy to look at a list of Batman’s traits and conclude that he’s a Mary Sue (“He’s the smartest and physically perfect and the richest and the world’s greatest detective and can reverse engineer alien/future technology he has no business being able to reverse engineer…”), but in the context of the Justice League he’s just a guy whose “superpower” is being at the extreme end of a bunch of bell curves.
But yeah, the concept is probably sexist; maybe modern audiences are just more sophisticated, but it seems awfully suspicious that we started hating on omnicompetent heroes at about the same time they started being female.
James Bond? From what I’ve read, the closest Ian Fleming did to a self-insert in those books was Q
Ian Fleming himself was a spy
Absolutely true. He was a commander in naval intelligence. One of various parallels to Bond.
Although there is a spectrum ranging from ‘an author is advised to write what they know’ to ‘a self insert’. Dave takes a risk in having much of the principle cast being military personnel. Despite having no such experience himself. So periodically makes mistakes, that leap out at people who do know the details in question.
When Ian Fleming was writing Bond he could have decided to give him a military background as an infantry sergeant. With the same sort of risk of breaking readers’ sense of disbelief, when he got something wrong. Or he could play it safe and be able to write compelling details, through drawing on real experiences.
With or without any intention of projecting himself into the role, as the case may be. What he did need to do though, if he wanted to be a compelling writer, is make sure that the reader wants to project themselves into the role. Something he did superbly well. Which doubtless does require putting a bit of himself in how her writes the character.
As to how much? Meh, that does not interest me, other than academically. And then only because it has arisen in debate. The important thing is that he did his job very well.
Heh, you have the tolerance of a saint. Personally I have an antipathy to the tools of persecution, hence my attitude when I see them being used. If used innocently hopefully it will put people off carrying on doing so. If they realise they are using an offensive term, and are decent people, then my zero-tolerance rebuttal may make then reconsider its use in future.
Far better for someone to specifically state what they mean (such as the ‘author insert’ that you included in your example definitions). Then they avoid the historical baggage of being associated with bullies and trolls. Plus, of course, they can thereby provide criticism in a constructive way that can be easily assessed on its merits.
I hadn’t heard of such a history for a Mary Sue, I’ll do some reading. I now want to read Menagerie.
Deus is still reading as a wish fulfillment character to me, but this is maybe the sort of encounter that could apply the consequences that never would attach to an actual Mary Sue.
Here you go. You will note that there it states the character was written as a parody of Star Trek. Yet a few years later the editors of the publication itself were using “Mary Sue” to describe the kinds of characters that they disliked. Who
Whether intentional, or not, by using her name they were associating that character, and her author, with bad writing, that they disliked. And thereby slagging off one of their own authors. Imagine how bad she felt, on reading that, and every time it was cited, in that publication, and elsewhere.
Not to mention seeing her name in the dictionary definition alongside the description:
I will point out some of the highlights, so that you can see why I dislike the term so intensely. Here are some of the things you were, inadvertently, claiming about the character and author’s writing:
This is having the following consequences to the industry:
What should we then call a character, regardless of gender, that seems to have an overabundance of positive traits and competencies without any negative traits to balance them out that constantly outshines everybody else in a (to the reader) extremely annoying way while being fawned upon by the writer?
We name that character: Bruce Wayne
Nothing. Because you have a list of different things there. Don’t be lazy. Stipulate the things that apply to a particular character. Don’t try to shoehorn a character to fit such a specific list of traits. That is the behavior of a troll.
Whereas if you want to give constructive criticism you should examine each aspect with care, and specify where something is flawed, rather than slap an arbitrary label on and say ‘that is close enough’.
To give you one example of why that is a silly thing to do here is a list of characters who have been accused of being a Mary Sue, just in this comic:
Sydney
Maxima
Krona
Deus
Dabbler
And that is just a sample of the ones where it was bandied around a lot.
Then look at your ‘definition, looking for a word’, in particular:
“… that constantly outshines everybody else .. ”
In a cast of various characters who are all accused of having those characteristics the term automatically contradicts itself. You cannot have multiple cast members constantly outshining everybody else! Taking their turn to outshine others, yes. Or outshining the group they hang around with the most, yes. But it is impossible for them to all constantly outshine everyone else!
So, in order to try and get the unwieldy term to actually provide constructive criticism you then have to exclude the nonsense that does not apply. Yet you are still choosing to stigmatise the character and insult the writer by association with a derogatory term.
Which is highly unfair, if you have an author who is so talented that so many characters are considered to be constantly shining. This comic is in the super genre. It is the writer’s job to ensure that the powerful players do shine, and far far brighter than ordinary mortals. Sometimes it is the hero’s turn to do that. This time it is one of the .. ahem.. anti-villains.
Plus may I point out that each of those I listed is unfair to include, in such a definition, as they do have an abundance of flaws. Sydney has a basket full. To name just a few other highlights though, we have Maxima’s anger, Dabbler’s tartiness, Krona’s inappropriate pranking and here we have Deus’s smugness. Not to mention having seen him being too incompetent to use a one-button remote control!
But this is the flaw in wishing to have a pigeon hole term with so many things included that you could park a 16 wheeler in it. It is not fit for purpose.
Bearing in mind, of course, that you abbreviated the definitions (which vary widely depending on where you seek such out). There is no mention of the common ‘author insert’, for example. Nor the fact that it has the baggage of being applied to fan fiction. Whereas all these are original characters, created by a professional writer.
Perhaps if I include an example of why people find actual Mary Sues bad my thinking becomes a little clearer. 1st season TNG Wesley Crusher, who you will note is male is in my mind one of the biggest in all of fiction.
It is unsurprising that the term would apply to a Star Trek character, given that Mary Sue was created as a parody of Star Trek.
You know, now that you’ve shown us Loki’s mask k is in the vault you have to do a Sydney splash page of her using it.
That would be worse than the time Ace Ventura stuck it on his butt (yes, that happened, in a cartoon crossover, and yes, the Mask still worked, on his butt)
was unicron there to save the day as he/she (do the bots actually have gender?) would be the only one powerful enough to deal.
Presumably it was an enemy of the Mask? I dread to think where the unicorn poked its horn!
Unicron, not unicorn, where’s that pesky cybertronian Aussie lizard when you need them?
:-D
Nah, it was simply a Jim Carrey double-feature
I spy with my little eye…
Something from a Jim Carey film.
You have masked which one well.
I wouldn’t answer Deus’s question about that. I’m thinking he has no idea himself; he’s just lying in the hope of getting them to reveal their method and then copying it or otherwise taking advantage.
That is wise. He has at least one method, at his disposal though, that should work. Namely using Opal’s portals. Sciona may have something similar in mind with her blood portal technique. But no point in giving it away, as you say.
My solution: Animate the stasis field into a living creature. An energy golem or a lightning elemental or whatever you want to call it. Then it kills itself and deactivates.
Deus have strange tastes about women.
Maxima and Sciona are probably the last choice for many man(Sciona the less liked of both obviously),One is a female version of superman with some feminist complex and the other…
I rather doubt that Deus would want to date Sciona. He is only offering his business card as a way of taunting Sciona. Not with the intent of provoking an attack mind. To the contrary. He is making it plain that he is not scared if Sciona wants to hunt him down and try to kill him later.
This is a way of showing his strength. “Here, this is where I live, if you want to bring it on” (in a manner of speaking – he would prefer any confrontation at his place of business, rather than his home). Coupled with the fact that his team could have arrived shooting, and Deus is making a powerful show of force.
Mind you if Sciona uses the artefact to restore her (presumably) beautiful dark elven looks, he may change his mind. But, as far as we know, he is still after Maxima.
Whether that is because he likes her, or just because of her position as the head of Arc-SWAT remains to be seen. But their prior relationship did, very likely, predate her appointment there, so he may genuinely care for her.
Or it may simply be that his ego would find scoring with Maxima gratifying. Or annoying her is something he finds amusing.
Small details check.
Panel 5, Deus’s business card. Although an alternative explanation has been offered, I do not see the graphic on his card the way proposed. Rather, to me, it looks like a pillar, split in the middle, with something resting on the pedestal thereby created.
In other words it looks like one of the artefact-bearing pillars in this room!
Deus’s way of ‘flipping Sciona the bird’, as well as dropping a subtle clue that he really did know what to expect here, before stepping through the portal.
Can anyone make out what is written on the card near Deus’ thumb? Is it actual words or just out-of-focus squiggles?
I can make out enough to tell that it emulates words closely enough that it probably is real writing. It would be easier for Dave to make an actual card, as a layer, than to simulate it with squiggles. And I think I would spot the subtle differences.
But the comic’s patreons will be the ones in a position to say for sure. At their resolution (and maximum magnification) they should be able to call it better than me. Although it clearly will not be possible to make it all out, as his thumb occludes some of it.
It occurs to me that the artifacts in this room may be less apocalyptic than advertised.
At least the Lament Configuration, Mask of Loki and Ice King’s Crown are not world ending items. They are extremely powerful and dangerous, agreed, but you would have to leverage them pretty hard to depopulate a planet.
This may be more of a storage for items that are “too dangerous to use”, since all of the aforementioned items have some pretty deleterious effects on the user, most notably stripping them of their self-control in every case.
Sciona may have bitten off more than even her lower jaw can chew.
Deus may be fine, since he probably just wants to have the objects to have them/just in case, and doesn’t intend to use them himself.
Well argued.
There is one caveat though, in that there is no reason why the vault cannot serve both roles. Namely ‘the place of putting world-ending devices’ as well as ‘things which are too dangerous to stay in play’ (for lesser reasons).
After all a massive amount of resources will have been used to create this. Why waste more building a second reliquary, just because there are items of two different categories to be sequestered?
One point would be that there is a danger in concentrating so many dangerous things in one place. Which for lesser items would be a good point. A bunch of moderately dangerous items, used cleverly in conjunction with one another, could become overwhelmingly powerful.
But, given that some of the items in the vault really are of a world-ending nature,* and can kill seven billion people, who is going to worry if you also put in an artefact that would encourage its user to kill ninety nine?
* The Crown of the Golden Army (of Hellboy fame) being a case in point, as it could exterminate all human life, on the planet. And probably any other race that the wielder took a dislike to. OK it is not a planet-killer device, as grass, worms and any race the wielder liked would survive.
However that setting also has ways of opening up portals to summon the Dark Elder Gods. Which would result in a far worse fate than merely all life on Earth dying! And we have seen that Zephan Zoeng fears just that happening (when he was envisaging what Sydney might be about to reveal inside Tubey).
Granted he may just be a Lovecraft fan. However it is worth bearing in mind that he is one of the leaders of the Mage’s faction, in the Twilight Council, as well as being the head of Arc Light. The organisation which is tasked with investigating weird s**t (similar to the investigations Scully and Mulder do). So if anyone knows about these things, it will be him. And he does not seem to sleep easy over the issue.
Y’know, with a bit faster updates, and a better parity in your character selection, you could easily bump marvel’s sales rate and head towards Dark Horse. Maybe even DC.
Coherant multi-layered storylines with thoughtful use of powers and complex characters? Sure shooting.
Lovely compliment for DaveB, and a deserved one, for that matter.
I do not think it is something that Dave could go lone wolf on though. Actively competing directly against the big boys, in all too many ways. I will throw advertising in as just one significant cost.
But he would also need support to take some of his present burdens off his hands. Simply because he already works round the clock to keep to this schedule.
Take Girl Genius as an example. They have a comparable quality comic, and do manage to update three times per week. But they have an artist, a writer and an inker all working full time. Plus can share out other roles (like the IT) and make enough money from merchandising that they can hire other people for specific tasks, if need be.
Whereas Dave has to do pretty much everything himself. Barring, of course, that he can hire Keith, to do the colouring. But the budget can only stretch to do that periodically.
Mind you all it takes is for the comic to get famous, and that would unlock a lot of options which could end up going down the path you project.
We don’t count the watch-list here as famous? Generally posters hover around 2% to 3% of the people watching and there’s a pretty robust comments section.
Not sure how to merchandise the comic other than printing books of current content though.
Clothing. There already is a line of ‘Always Expect Ninjas’. In fact there are a lot of slogans that could be merchandised on t-shirts, mugs and so on. Many of which would be community specific, but there are others (like ninja one) which would work for the general public too.
For example if you think back to the x-ray vision notice, that could work on either a poster or a sweat-shirt, suitably modified for the purpose. Likewise Dave has created a number of conceptual clothing items which have received interest (as in people indicating they would buy them if produced).
And that is not an idle prpospect, as a couple of separate readers, representing relevant companies, have expressed interest.
As always though time is the issue. These kinds of ventures do require a time investment, in various ways. Any of which would cut into comic creating time and, as Dave is paid to do that, he is loath to let the schedule slip.
Of course he gets a lot of support, from the community, that we would be understanding of such, but Dave has yet to be convinced. Always bearing in mind that creating the comic is his passion, so I doubt the other aspects have the appeal.
Oooh I have a thought. Just reach in and grab it. Humans are covered in a layer of dead skin.
After you.
*puts in a call to funeral home*
*puts on black fore-paw band*
Deus real superpower is talking with his mouth closed
You will find that talking does require alternating having the lips together with having them apart. To the extent that people who can talk without doing that have made careers in entertainment, as ventriloquists!
Deus just happens to look at his best captured at moments when his mouth is closed. Especially in this scene where he is supplementing his dialogue with smiles and smirking. This is an essential part of conveying the scene, as those are highly emotive moments, which will serve to further alienate Sciona.
no need to be snarky, I’m aware of how basic communication works
Sorry. Going through a rough patch. I will try to stop it suppressing my tact.
*hangs head guiltily, ears drooping*
You must be new? Around here, when someone makes a snarky comment like yours (or one in simple ignorance) then someone will post an explanation
Yorpie, you didn’t post anything snarky, so you have nothing to apologize for
Well, somethings that is already a living skin over dead material is a tree. and I can see a tree limb easily pushed out an artifact like a ram.
Now where is Groot?
You know I never got how Groot became a hero. To me he is still a villain from an old Hulk comic.
The US army are the good guys when they are fighting Nazis. But they are the bad guys when they are fighting the Hulk. The NSA and GCHQ are the good guys when they foil a terrorist plot. They are the bad guys when they invade our privacy, without a justifiable reason.
“One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist”
It is all dependent on who’s viewpoint you see the situation from, in conjunction with the morals and cause that the person is fighting for.
Even Batman may stop being a vigilante someday and become a good guy.
On panels 2 and 3:
Sciona: “Oh, really?”
Vale: “Fight me B****”
David Xanatos is now looking at Deus and going, “While he’s got less class than I do, man do I admire his chutzpah.”