Grrl Power #63 – Don’t leave a sister hanging
So yeah, it was coming down to the wire and I hemmed and hawed and I finally just had to go with something for the team name. ArcSWAT sounds better than FSWAT I think, plus it lets me have unofficial sub teams like the ArcAngels/Knights/Troops/Corps/whatever. Plus this lets me come up with an acronym for “ARC” if I want. It’ll probably wind up being something Latin so that way it won’t have to sound quite as tortured. There were a lot of suggestions, some were pretty funny, some were pretty good actually, I’m not sure if they quite captured the flavor of the team though. Nothing quite had that ah-hah moment though, but they did give me an idea for a funny comic, maybe it’ll be a bonus Thursday comic, though I suspect I may hang onto it to make sure I don’t have a gap in the holidays coming up. There are a lot of mega huge video games coming up in the next month. Skyrim by itself will take be 2 years to beat if I have to play it for 2 hours at a time on Saturday mornings like a lot of my video gaming is since starting the comic. I think I’m looking forward to Saints Row 3 just as much though.
Speaking of which, anyone in to Minecraft? Doing a comic does occasionally make me regret not having this sort of time on my hands anymore. On the other hand, I have a comic, so it works out ok. Minecraft never really did it for me, for some reason I really got in to Terraria for a while though.
I’m not sure why the first panel is chibi, that’s just how it presented itself in my head, so I went with it.
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Wow, blonde Harem looks so much older in panel 8. Is that the Vogue copy?
And panel 4 really had me laughing. I love how you balance the no-nonsense Maxima and the crazy Sydney so perfectly. Dry wit vs. nutso, can’t beat it!
Yeah drawing people the right age is a real challenge for me. I basically learned to draw “superhero age” which is basically someone in peak physical shape somewhere in their late 20’s/early 30’s, then I dove into drawing anime style, which is arguably much younger, but so stylized it doesn’t translate back into comic book style.
Yeah the Sydney/Max dynamic amuses me as well. Sydney is all “OMG superhero!” but at the same time doesn’t take flak from anyone, which, despite how much it can wind Max up, is one thing that she likes about Sydney. She’s used to people adjusting their behavior around her cause they want something from her, but Sydney is blissfully oblivious.
Yeah – like not getting their heads popped like zits if they piss her off.
Well sure, that, but also her power means that people want to control her or use her, at least get on her good side so people constantly censor their behavior around her. Also she’s beautiful (or at least supposed to be… my art is a little iffy in that department) to the point that if she wasn’t gold, it would be the first thing that people describe about her, and that affects how both men and women interact with her. She’s just aware that almost nobody is themselves around her.
… With the possible exception of Sydney, who so far seems to have been nothing BUT herself around Maxima.
I don’t think that Sydney came equipped with the “Self-edit” system installed at the factory. ;)
You know, I really do like her. BUT! Where ever that ‘Factory’ is, it needs to be destroyed. Not just because the mold for her is there, they could always make another. Or some one not as nice, fun, or down right cute!
Hey! Where do you think I was made, New South Wales?! :p
“GASP” ….or even worse. They could make the evil Anti-Sydney who’s nice, courteous, sedate, and girly. “Maniacal Laughter”
Stigmartyr762- Nope don’t think so, that defective Sydney would die of shame as soon as she heard of our Sydney!
Heheh. Silly Sydney, you had your moment. Now get off camera.
Also, got my Sydney shirt today. HAPPY!
Nice dialogue for Maxima. Descriptive and succinct.
She’s military. Straight forward no muss, no fuss speaking her mind and leaves little room for misinterpretation.
For the record, this is NOT a request to change anything–I fully understand that this alternate universe has alternate rules.
As a point of order, though, this organization cannot be organized under the DoD. DoD operates under Titles 10, 32, and 50 of the US Code. Domestic Activity (i.e. Law Enforcement) is a Title 18 responsibility, currently organized under the DHS. In our reality, this would be either suborned under the FBI, or (less likely) report to DHS directly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
Worth noting (mentioned in the Wiki article, but have also read about this elsewhere). When USN vessels are doing anti-drug patrols, they routinely carry Coast Guard personnel onboard. Then, if arrests look like being imminent, either the USCG guys make those arrests or, in some cases, the entire vessel and crew are ‘temporarily seconded’ to the US Coast Guard for a while.
Point being that there are often limitations in using US military units for civilian work, but this is not necessarily an absolute.
I’m aware of the Posse Comitatus Act – I scanned through it and my interpretation of it is that the act specifically names the branches of the military it covers. It doesn’t say “any department under DOD” So, this being a new branch, PCA doesn’t cover it. Also, the intent of the act is essentially to prevent the federal government from being able to occupy domestic territory, as ArcSWAT is a very small force, they couldn’t occupy more than a building or two at the moment. Maybe a city block. This’ll come up in the comic… actually maybe on the next page. Haven’t quite written that one yet. If not it’ll come up at some point.
Maxima could probably ‘occupy’ a small city on her own, in the military sense. Or at least a decent sized town.
I’d imagine that any attempt to create a government agency specifically to deal with superhumans, especially with a few superhuman recruits right off the bat, is going to have to deal with some interesting jurisdiction juggling for a while.
I don’t know much about this stuff but can’t the President issue an executive order to create something like this team if the threat to the nation is considered valid. I mean sure there would be politicians freaking out everywhere but if Godzilla started attacking NY or something couldn’t he just call up ArcSWAT and say “Go fix it”
Since Arianna’s (deniably) arranged this as a publicity stunt for ARCSWAT, and Maxima’s now giving it the PR treatment, presumably the team’s only very recently been set up (possibly in response to an emerging “extraordinary threat”?). Given this recent pedigree, it may be that one of the team’s first missions will be to persuade the bureaucrats and lawyers not to shut them down while they bicker over jurisdictions.
There ARE provisions for activating the military in a domestic capacity–recognition of a natural disaster (Military support to FEMA), declaration of a national emergency (i.e. Martial Law), etc… Those provisions are largely considered “option of last resort,” however. This is something completely different, and I’m quite sure as radical as this concept is, it would be closely monitored by Congress (in fact, I’d be willing to bet there would be a Congressional liaison somewhere in the HQ, providing oversight and reporting back to the HASC/SASC, as well as an executive liaison reporting to the White House).
I realize I’m almost two weeks late replying to this, but…troops deployed for disaster response have no law enforcement authority, which is why the PCA does not apply to such deployments.
Given that ArcSWAT is a numerically very small part of the US military. But military organizations are often switched around to deal with specific problems – refer the Navy / Coast Guard thing mentioned ealier.
THEORETICALLY (and there may be provisions for / against this – there IS a psycho lawyer in the picture, after all), in an extreme situation, other military units (a SEAL team? the 101st Airborne? the 5th Fleet?) could be “attached” / “transferred” / “seconded” / “loaned” / “deputized” / whatever to ArcSWAT. And the opposite could be true as well.
I don’t see the Nimitz carrier group being attached to ArcSWAT any time soon. :p
heheh
Fleet Admiral: “Why do you need one of my carriers?”
Arianna: “A couple of our group need it for an exercise.”
FA: “What type of exercise?”
Arianna: *Sigh* “Bench press.”
@dragonking–you owe me a keyboard and monitor (though my sinus passages are nicely cleared up now)
Fleet Admiral: What is she doing with that fighter?!?!
Arianna: …baseball practice, we have an inter-squad game tonight.
Neither do I, but you never know.
The Coast Guard being activated as part of the Navy is an oddity specific to that service. Units from the USA/USN/USAF/USMC working with ArcSWAT would become “Joint Commands” and subject to a whole ‘nother layer of BS.
To be honest, the sort of political and legal crapstorm this would cause would already be monumental. Having them set as military instead of civilian would just make everything orders of magnitude worse. This would explicitly be a unit intended to assault and abduct people on US soil, including citizens, and that would be attacked from all sides for a variety of issues.
Even normally simple issues would become nigh-unworkable from a legal perspective, as questions of agency and legitimacy would be more than enough to get cases thrown out unless the villain’s rights were flatly ignored. It would explain why supervillains go free so often, but it would also make the group’s viability dubious at best.
Attaching them to the FBI or DHS would make all those issues moot, thus making it politically viable.
It’ll definitely come up in the comic, but I don’t want to burn pages on congressional hearings nor do I want to comic to get too political, but I think some of that might be unavoidable. We’ll see.
You don’t have to “burn pages” on congressional hearings. Maybe one page or just two, three or even one panel on it. Remember in “The Incredibles” how they spent less than 3 minutes on what happened to the supers that could have taken up half the movie? And you would have far less to cover. Or you can just put the information in salient places in conversation flash backs where needed. Like during some thing that harkens back to whatever protocols they are under and which ones they are bending. (Or breaking.) Where Arianna comes in to smooth things over with the Brass, Congress and the Prez.
The thing to remember is that while yes being attatched to the DoD is a big deal, it is really what the group is chartered to accomplish that will play the key roll in any kind of dispute with Congress. There would be oversight of course, and depending on the kind of person doing the oversight I could see some truly hilarious situations. Imagine their overseer calling at 3 in the morning to find out what is going on with something and waking up Sydney when it was her turn on the phones or something.
The real pissing match as I see it is less likely to be between Congress and the DoD than it is to be between the DoD and ARCSWAT. Like it or not, even with as small as their staff is, this is going to be seen as a money pit by an organization that has de facto control over them, is tasked with funding them, but due to their own situation is almost completely incapable of using them for any normal operations that don’t involve parades or recruitment posters. If I assume a yearly salary of an average of two hundred grand a year per super, (a lowball estimate in my opinion) and at least eighty grand per normal human “specialist” attatched to the unit, plus base of operations, equipment, transportation, public relations, a secondary squad of lawyers charged with seeing to it that the inevitable BS lawsuits for damages and whatever incurred during a mission are dealt with…
I would think when it is all said and done fifty million a year is probably a lowball estimate on the cost to maintain this unit. Honestly a very lowball estimate. Probably at least three times that amount. The idea that the DoD is going to just roll over and let that money ooze out of their coffers is optimistic at best.
As exciting as it sounds, I’ll touch on their budget and funding a little later on.
Hell, to be honest I don’t know that I would bother to touch on it at all. It’s your comic, you do what you want. If any of this nit-picky bullshit gets more than a panel or two that you didn’t already have planned anyway, I would probably shut down comments before we nerds talk you into making your comic boring. Currently, the only problem I have with your comic is the seven days I have to wait between installments. Why ruin a good thing?
Sorry to burst your bubble, but any force under the DoD is considered “federal troops,” so yes, the Posse Comitatus Act would apply to ArcSWAT.
Personally, I would find it more likely they’d be organized under the Federal Marshals – who are DoJ – anyways, given the similarity in job profiles…
I submit for your approval, bubble breaker, that the introduction of super villains would cause a few changes pretty quick.
But that being said, I have to respectfully disagree with your assesment even if we assume no changes took place. The only alphabet soup that actually has the kind of sweeping, overbearing, generalised and backed by law power to truly make use of a “Super Team” while simultaneously being able to either deflect or ignore the inevitable criticism of it’s implementation is actually the Department of Homeland Security. What they were created to do is pretty much exactly what you would expect a super team to do, everything from internal and external anti-terrorism right on through natural disasters and everything in between. For the record, (Because I know it’s coming) any villain that had an ability that would require the likes of this team to stop would have the terrorist label on them in less than a second anyway even if all they were doing was jaywalking. In a “real world” scenario the team would be tripping over them everywhere they went anyway, may as well be attached to them. What the DHS actually does may or may not fit within the definition that was put forth for them, but I digress. My vote for “Legitimate” government branch to control something like this is the DHS.
I love panels 2 and 3. It’s nice to see you applying a gentle facial expression to Max. Even if it’s a profile, it gets friendliness across.
Yup. ‘Arc-Swat’ sounds reasonably bad-ass.
Urr, super-VILLIANS. Is that anything like super-villains? ;)
Of course, that could just be the way Sydney pronounces it.
I also like Max’s expression in panels 2-4. Something very human happening there.
It also contrasts very nicely with her “Don’t Even THINK Of Messing With Me” expression in the next couple of panels.
This page made me laugh. I think it perfectly shows how Maxima may get pissed off, but she’s still kind of looking out for sydney.
One question however, How did she find out Sydney’s name? They haven’t actually introduced each other yet.
There was a bit of a time jump between the pages where Sydney chased everyone out of the bank with her de-lunching and the page where her and Max are sitting on the curb. Enough time for the cops and ambulance to arrive anyway, so that exchange happened off screen.
“ARC SWAT” makes me picture a steampunk flyswatter :) “Watch out! He’s got the Arc Swatter!”
But yeah, it’s good.
I’m the same with names – always holding out for something to fit “just right”.
I’ve gone through it for four side characters now – making lists of options, browsing baby names… ultimately settling for something that COULD be better.
Augmented Reconnaissance and Countermeasures is the best I’ve come up with.
Perhaps Assault, Recon, & Containment Special Weapons and Tactics?
Look at Maxima on pannel five, she looks a little miffed that the reporter say’s she is made out of gold. Is that a pout?
I think it’s something she’s heard a lot. I mean she is SHINY!!!! :p
But yeah the Pout is probably because all the hassle. It’s not like she can cover it up and just grab a cup of coffee or something. If you think about it, it must be a real drag at times.
I sympathise – people think they’re being original (or just don’t think how many times you’ve already heard it) – I used to get “Did anyone ever tell you you look like Jerry Garcia?” all the time.
Now i get “Hey – do you play Santa Claus for Christmas?”
I hit my adult height of 6’5″ at 16. I was thoroughly bored with every tall joke known to man before I was 17. Being metallic gold 24/7 has got to be exponentially worse!
You realize Sydney would probably call you “Sequoia” right?
6’8″ myself. I sympathize.
“How’s the weather up there?” “It’s raining.”
Darnit. The autofilter took out the spitting noise at the end. Somehow I never get asked that question anymore…
Yeah, having a characteristic that automatically marks as superhuman that can’t be concealed by anything less than a full-body hologram can’t be fun.
She’s probably also received entirely too many jokes about using a car buffer instead of a washcloth, ect.
Mech. WE”VE mad jokes about her needing a car buffer out of the shower…I’ll be in my bunk :p
It’s not so much a pout as her grouchily acknowledging the camera/audience. She’s not a fan of reporters in general. She probably has some respect for investigative reporters (the ones that investigate stuff that matters, not gossipy stuff) and the ones embedded with the military, but most news these days is senseless pablum at best.
sindy is starting to remind me of myself four years ago
What part? when syd is saying “hello mom!” or when she wants the high five?
her social skills and personality in general match me well back then.
Sydney in panel 7 is one of the cutest things I’ve seen in a long time. ^_^
Since panel 4 of this or this page? She’s doing a lot of that lately.
I can see the cuteness in the last link you have but not the first one. Can not seem to find the cute in any of the panels on that page.
Awww, come on — blushing deer-in-headlights Sydney as Suzy starts her intro? Seriously cute.
I did not see the blush it just looks like a shadow from here hair.
Compare her face to the first frame and you’ll see it – it’s not a huge blush (you wouldn’t expect Sydney to do a big blush anyway) but it’s there.
“It’s classified. Also, no one knows.”
If only that didn’t ring so true. I can hear Sydney now: “If nobody knows, why did they classify it?”
I think the “Also no one knows.” was intended to indicate Max’s internal dialog and feelings — not actually said out loud.
Yeah, that’s an aside. I picked that up probably from old Masamune Shirow, like Dominion or something. Whether she said it loud enough to be heard is debatable.
I love Sydney, in each and every panel. Panel three may be my favorite. Great page today.
Took me a while to figure out who the people where in panel one. I knew that that one in the front with the spook ears was Maxima though.
Oh by the way what does D.O.D stand for?
Department of Defense I believe.
Department of Defense. Aka the military
Department Of Defence.
Dept. O’ Dee Fence!
I will send dee man with dee nails to fix dee fence tomorrow.
Gud de dog keep gettin out de fence.
The comment about legalities and military supers got me thinking. I have seen that argument before…
Dave – If you want to gather ammunition and/or hone your arguments for how things do or do not work in your world (hazards of an engaged fan base I suppose) might I recommend the main forums on Steve Jackson Games website for the GURPS Roleplaying game?
From what I have seen they generally have a pretty good crew of nitpickers over there, and they are (given the nature of GURPS as multi-genre) used to the damnedest questions… and are very skilled at coming up with sensible answers.
Otherwise keep up the good works!
Honestly, it’s fun to go over there and read through the latest arguments sometimes just for the weirdness level. Where else can you find people obsessing over the minute details of who would win between a katanna master and a hungry T-Rex right next to a discussion about politics in ancient Rome?
so who would win between a katanna master and a hungry T-Rex?
Being as, at least in that thread, everything had to be done strictly according to the GURPS rules it turned out to be a surprisingly difficult question. I believe the fine points kept it going for eight pages or more.
End result? They couldn’t decide. If the T-Rex was young and stupid, the guy with the katanna very likely could get in underneath the initial charge from the dino and get in a couple good strikes at the Achilles tendon and/or femoral arteries in the leg (katanna wins). If on the other claw the T-Rex was a battle scarred veteran then the guy with the katanna never has a chance to get close to the legs and has to attack the head – as it is in turn attacking him (T-Rex wins).
Threads like that one don’t happen too often, but damn they are fun when they do…
ack! I can’t figure out how to attach a picture. Darn my non-techie ways
anyway, I have a couple comic-style pics of Wolverine going up against a Tyrannasaur…
The lizard never stood a chance
Well sure, if you are allowed to bring superpowers and cinematic abilities into the question…
Department of Defense
Did anyone else have a sympathy pang for Max’s unexpected self-ignorance with her aside in panel 6? She looks…concerned? Dejected? Worried? I’m not sure, but neither happy nor angry, so some more sulky kind of mood seems to fit best. IDK *shrugs*
Perhaps a strong feeling of alienation? It’s tough enough to be and look so different — but when no one can even figure out what you’re made of, that kinda drives the point home.
Well spotted.
Woohoo, chibi Maxima! I’m a fan.
I like ARCSWAT. It sounds right. One step above regular SWAT. Ambiguous and vaguely threatening. Badass. It works. And I’m not sure you ever need to really define it. (That could actually make for a nice running gag, where it keeps changing and/or no one knows what it really means.)
Should be noted that (not surprisingly) the acronym is in use for other things. American Red Cross comes up as one of the top hits, but there are others. Plenty of others. The one that really rang my bell in this context, however, was from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, where the truly elite clones are ARC Troopers (Advanced Recon Commandos).
In other news, I’m confused about what’s going on in Panel 8. Do we know these people? Why are they high-fiving each other? Are those aspects of Harem high-fiving each other? Because Maxima got the team name on air? Because the team name was her/their idea? Or something else entirely? Is the “tag” supposed to denote that they’re swapping jobs or something?
That is Harem arriving at the base with the memory stick for Leon. “Vogue” is tagging out “Goth” cause she’s the one with the stick, and there’s not usually a big reason for more than one of her to be in the same place at the same time. I don’t have Vogue in Harem’s who’s who graphic cause I don’t have a good straight on shot of her yet. That panel was just Max being long winded about the team, and I didn’t think another shot of her staring at the camera was too exciting, so I used the panel to get a jump start on the next comic instead.
By the way, how are clones elite? I thought clones were supposed to all be the same. Wouldn’t stand out individuals tell you that there’s something wrong with the cloning process? Doesn’t matter anyway, I bet none of them can hit a main character.
Better training
Clones start out from the same pattern, but how they develop from there depends upon factors they experience after ‘birth’ since that can never be the same. Thus, differences in the clones.
Like I said, Better training.
1) Not all clones are taken off the same original. Presumably, different clone lines emphasize different traits.
2) While all clones from the same line have the same genetic potential (modulo any deliberate mods), they won’t all develop that potential to the same extent (differences in uterine environment as well as experience). Even with artificial wombs, the nutrient mixes could be different.
The clone are individual enough to develop slightly differently, some will show a better aptitude for say being pilots as opposed to being ground forces. There was a Clone Wars episode about a squad completing their training and a couple mentioned wanting to try and get into the ARC squads. So I assume while they used Fett’s DNA as the template there is still a lot of possibilities in mental development and personality.
having a different definition for ARCSWAT every time might make a good running gag, but it does mean DaveB has to think up new definitions.
Ahh, Sydney, the master interviewer.
I still think it would have been funnier if she answered that everything was classified, including the name of the group.
Reporter:Who are you?
Max: That’s classified
R:Are you in the military?
M: That’s Classified.
R What were yo-
M: Classified
R: Bu-
M: Classified!
R: Now-
Syd: CLASSIFIED!!!!11!11
Am I going crazy, or does Sydney’s picture at the top of the page keep changing?
Cannot speak as to your sanity, but all the pics at the top of the page change.
Ya the pictures at the top change as you refresh the page.
Web browser caching being what it is, they don’t switch out as often as I’d like, but it should happen at least once a day. If you clear your cache, it’ll happen the next time you load the page. You know… unless the randomizer just happens to pick the same portrait each time, but Sydney/Halo and Max are both up to about 30 pics now.
It is always random each time I load the page so it changes a lot for me. Maybe it is time for you to stop using crappy IE. LOL j/k
Dont apologise. Its IE.
Must admit, never realised that before… *checks* randomised in header… Interesting….
I use chrome -_-
Well its a good thing the camera was running as they actually got a geniune smile on Sydney’s face lol.
Supervillians! Love it!
ARCSWAT sounds painful and it is if you live long enough. I don’t expect Sydney to blush to often but to get flushed often in her manic state she seems to be in most of the time. It puts a fire in her belly. Notice how she told the towering powerful beauty Maxim to “bite me” when she didn’t high five fast enough. It even took Maxima briefly off guard as you can tell by her surprised expression. Just great! So far I have not been disappointed yet. And I’ve gone through all the pack pages from the beginning.
Sydney is cute but I’d gather if I was actually around her for some long period I might get tired of some of her antics.
I’m pretty sure the ‘bite me’ was in response to Max’s ‘medium five’ comment (Sydney is 5’0″ to Max’s 6’1″). Syd is sensitive about her height.
Yep, if Max actually did a “high” five, I don’t think Sydney could jump high enough for it.
In the eighth (second-to-last) panel, is Harem merging two selves or just having one teleport in and one teleport elsewhere?
One’s porting in (Vogue) and one’s porting out (Goth). She doesn’t need to tag herself out obviously, but if you could do it, wouldn’t you on occasion?
Advanced Response Corps- Superhuman Weapons and Tactics
That one actually makes sense.
By the way- just got caught up with Wereworld a couple weeks ago and have been meaning to ask- is the Dabbler here the same Dabbler (as in, is this part of the same timeline/continuality) as Wereworld’s Dabbler? If so, is this supposed to be before or after that series? I noticed that the personalities (well, what little personality we’ve seen of Dabbler here, due to her limited camera time) seem pretty different.
Yes it is the same Dabbler set at a latter date than Wereworld. She is an alien, along with a lot of other things ( read the bio ) . People act diffrently to diffrent situations, on Wereworld she was on the job on a hostile alien planet, here she is still on an alien planet, but she is in a relaxed situation. I hope that answers your questions. Your welcome.
I want to be productively critical; that was just the wrong panel to switch to chibi.
I think the chibi modes need to come with moments that have somewhat more cartoony emotions with it, like when sydney freaks out in unconventional manners. I just cannot imagine there ever being a good chibi moment for Maxima.
Also, ArcSWAT is a terrible name, please retcon it soon. the “Swat” part gives the impression of a single team, NOT a large organization. This is basically a whole military branch; you need something that sounds like a big organization, not a single team.
As a branch of military, I don’t think it should have a name long enough to warrant a cool acronym. At best it would have three letters and be referred to by the initials, like D.E.A.
CPA (Civilian Protection Agency) sounds much more realistic than any of those acronyms that spell out a six-letter word.
Yeah I’m still second guessing the name of the team but that’s why I put the “tentatively” in on Max’s response. Really I’m almost thinking that the team will function like the SEALs in a way, breaking in to strike forces comprised of whoever needs to be on them for the missions. So ArcSWAT is really just talking about the White Ops branch of the team, which is really the only public facing aspect. The branch as a whole… that leaves me with another naming connundrum, but it’ll probably be something much more governmenty sounding, like what you suggested, Extraordinary Threat Response or something. I’d love it if I could come up with something that fit A.R.C that didn’t sound utterly tortured but I suspect that’s not in the cards. (Something) Response Corps maybe. Advanced? Bleh. Awesome? Maybe if the division was headed by Jack Black.
BTW I realize that SEALs aren’t exactly white ops. I just don’t know who else to compare them to. It seems the more elite the group is, the less they operate in the public eye. This group is the polar opposite of that.
Dave – your description sounds very much like the IMF from Mission: Impossible (mostly the TV series, though the movies do harken back to it)
“Good morning Mr Phelps. Your IMF team will be comprised of the following individuals… Your mission is to… This tape will self-destruct in 15 seconds.”
Rather than a military Branch, this organization sounds more like an Agency, which provides much more flexibility in its composition & c2 structure, but is much more specific (limited) in its application. Additionally, agencies are usually Joint, which means they can employ individuals from all branches. Another possibility is an Office, which is even more specific (though not necessarily any smaller), and reports directly to somebody extremely high in the Executive branch (usually an appointee, like the SECDEF, DNI, etc).
hope this helps
OBTW, I wanted to just say that I really admire how you actually think things through in your comic–I don’t always agree with your assessments, but I think it’s great that you make deliberate decisions and go with them (either that, or you’re REALLY good at after-the-fact justification, which is also an important life-skill).
A little from column A a little from column B. Look, I’m just a nerd like the rest of you guys – I’ve given this a fair amount of thought but I don’t have any real world experience with military and government organizations. I suspect that even if I read a lot of Tom Clancy novels it wouldn’t help all that much. There will probably be ongoing discussions within the comic world as to how the team is organized and placed how they are. In the real world I don’t think this could have been all nice and set up in secret and sprung on the public all at once, I’m just trying to present this more or less the way it’s been dancing around in my head for years now, and write around that in a way that at least feels like I’ve put some thought into it. Maybe this isn’t how it’d happen in the real world, but then maybe in this world there’s already been significant enough threats that people got a little panicky and gave this team a little too much chutzpah right out of the gate. I think people will always be able to argue that they should be under this agency or that but I’ll at least try and justify this stuff in the comic. I’m definitely taking notes from the comments, and if this ever gets made in to a live action movie, I’ll be sure to hire some consultants. :)
I think i need to take a holiday when skyrim comes out :D
I think we all will need Harem’s abilities when that game comes out.
I’ve decided that she has pretty much the best superpower short of stuff like reality control or the ability to cause anyone you want to spontaneously orgasm.
?!
That last “superpower” would be kind of messy, don’t you think?
If that power could be used on multiple targets in a specific area, it would be the ultimate in “humane” riot control.
Yeah but can you imagine using it on Dr. Doom mid-monologue?
“Fools! You will rue the day you crossed AY MAMI!” >Thud< Really I can't imagine any situation from any comic I've seen that wouldn't have been instantly resolved with that power. The major drawback of course, would be that crime would SKYROCKET.
“Y-e-s-s-s-s. I have been a very very BAD boy, and I must be punished…”
Holy crap Dave, it took me 5 minutes to stop laughing at a mental image of Dabbler (being most likely to know a spell to do that), doing exactly that to Doom with Sydney pointing and laughing at him. Absolutely brilliant villain take-down technique. (as an aside I actually saw a spell to do just that a long time ago for Palladium Fantasy on a website, also a spell to cause someone to switch genders, spells for sudden overpowering infatuation with members of the same gender, spells to cause genitalia to shrink, and others, turned them loose on a group of PCs as a DM once, funniest battle in a long time, also the players felt REALLY good about killing the enemy)
Dark Phoenix orgasms and the universe explodes. Insert the obvious joke here… but there *are* a few situations where that power would be the WORST thing you could do.
There used to be a spell years back in an earlier version of D&D that let you give a one word command to anyone. The party paladin made the person with this spell very annoyed one night. The number of vows he got that paladin to simultaneously break was awe-inspiring.
I think the D&D spell you are thinking of is ‘Command Word’, which basically gives the caster the ability to give a one word command that the target / victim MUST obey.
Friend of mine used this very effectively against a Giant in one long-ago game. Worked beautifully – as well as freaking out the GM (always a good thing). It meant that, for that battle, said Giant could only move fairly slowly and HAD to keep one hand otherwise occupied at all times.
Hilarious! Thanks!
That would be the “tasp” device from Larry Niven’s “Known Space” universe.
Imagine a supervillian with that power! Yes officer he did take my diamond broach, but I won’t be pressing charges because he just gave me the best night of my life. Five of them.
OK team, Orgamaster just knocked over the first national bank, Who want’s to go catch him? (everybody) Me! Me! Me!
I came up with a super villain power similar to that body control (theirs not yours), just picture the scene, you’ve just robbed the 1st national bank and some spandex wearing hero wannabe comes running up, so want you do?, start messing around with his/her/it’s sphincter and maybe their bladder for good measure.
Question do they try and stop you and run the risk of am embarrassing accident or do they let you go to deal with a “most pressing need”
Jean Grey used a similar trick during an assault on the mansion a few years back.
You can actually do that in Shadowrun 4th Edition- the Street Magic book contains the spells Orgasm and Orgy.
Marvel’s ‘Starfox’ had something similar. They tried to keep his ‘Pleasure Power’ more or less G-rated – those targeted by it tended to giggle a lot and be VERY agreeable (“Hey, Mister Heavily Armed Goon, how about surrendering?” “Heeheehee. Sure, here’s my gun. Shall I just wait over here until the cops arrive? …”).
One could not help but notice that Starfox was also extremely popular with the ladies.
hmm
Powered Offence, Weaponized Armored Recon and Combat
POWARC
which will quickly devolve into powar or power in common speak.
Oh and erh.. new here, hay thar, like what you’re doing so far,
Assuming it doesn’t degrade into “park” first.
… or pooh
… or Pork (mmm… pork)
Anachronistic Regular Characters.
I truly do have you applaud your characterisation. Not many people can get that sort of believable and yet hilarious interplay.
On a side note Sydney and Maximilia seem likely to end up hijacking this interview :P
Thanks. I’d take credit for spending lots of time balancing that stuff and carefully editing, but most of this stuff is 1st or second draft. I secrete it!
Wondering how long it will take the reporter to ask the obvious question about when/how Maxima became a super. I assume the good bits are classified, but the process and mechanisms whereby someone becomes a super haven’t been mentioned yet ‘on screen’, so…
I’m waiting for the reporter to ask Sydney how long SHE has been a super. The reaction should be interesting.
Minecraft, eh? My friend owns a server that went public last week. You can dress up as monsters, and the dogs are re-skinned as xenomorphs from the Aliens movies. …And I somehow managed to convince him to see if he could get kaiju to work on the server. They would be pilot-able if they work.
You can find the specific address on this forum page- http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/720142-the-definitive-minecraft-experience/
Aliens eh? Isn’t that a coincidence. In addition to the Duomo, I also made the Aliens Motion Tracker mod
Some of us speculate here because we can. Some of us have knowledge of police, physics and even some of the military-industrial complex. But when it comes down to it it is good story telling that counts the most. I’m happy with whatever you decide DaveB.
i didn’t say this in the other thread because you wanted a semi-serious name, but I cannot contain it any longer…
B uild,
A ssault, and
D estroy
A rmy
S uper
S ervice
p.s. Amazons R Cool
The actual meaning of ARCSWAT is a national secret of the highest grade. By which I mean that nobody in the government actually has the clearance to know it.
“My security clearance is so high I’m supposed to shoot myself if I remember it.”
Haha XD.