Grrl Power #694 – Threat underwhelming
Sydney’s comment at the beginning of this page is mostly just me recognizing that this conversation has taken place across a number of backgrounds, and it sort of looks like they’ve walked halfway across a city by now. I haven’t decided if Cora is running an errand on the way back to her ship or what’s up, but you know how it is in this comic. Half the pages so far seem to be her meeting new people and having lengthy QA sessions with them.
Sydney doesn’t know what Cora’s combat abilities are, she’s mostly just laughing because these thugs are… probably lower level that her previous battle. Still, she knows if Cora is Dabbler’s friend, she can probably take care of herself.
Cora does know her own abilities and at least suspects Sydney’s.
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Welp, THIS should be fun.
For the girls, I mean.
Dang!
You said it first … So I think ‘Ditto’!
Any one starting a pool bets on how far the biggest thug will fly?
Now I’m hoping the next page starts with a smash cut to the bridge of the recently-damaged ship.
– Panel 1: The pilot being reamed for “over-reacting to seeing something outside the window.”
– Panel 2: One of the alley thugs splats face-first against the window, causing the superior officer only inches away to jump and shriek like a little
girlblortharg.– Panel 3-5: A moment of eye contact between the panicked thug and the frozen crew, before the thug slides slowly off the window and out of sight.
– Panel 6: “I’m sorry Captain, you were saying?” “Carry on, Lieutenant. I’ll be in my quarters.”
I was going to say that normally in a vacuum, you just bounce off what ever you hit. It’s air pressure–the highspeed wind of the ship’s movement–that would press a body to a windshield before scraping it off sideways…but they’re close to the surface of the Fracture, which clearly has an atmosphere, so…scrape away, thug dude, scrape away…
Depends how rigid the two objects colliding are. If it’s a properly elastic collision between rigid objects, things go as you say. If either or both is squishy enough to deform permanently on impact, that will take up some of the energy, and if it can take up all of the energy then the objects may stick together. Of course, gravity then takes its turn, and may pull the stuck body down or off the window.
Is that Black Mage from 8 Bit Theatre on the left? You would think he would have learnt some self preservation by now.
BM doesn’t have a beak
To quote the Doctor: The problem is not that I am trapped in here with you, but that you are trapped in here with me.
Rorschach, actually.
https://i.imgur.com/HU0lLsc.jpg
Actually It was me, when I saw this comic
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1290
It makes me think of Agent 47 when he was captured (intentionally) and interrogated by the US Consulate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKprAp8Eapo
Oops. About 2:30 into the video should show the comment, plus his additional comment about his gun brought in :)
i prefer “Chesty” Puller, USMC’s response to that situation. “Those poor bastards. They’ve got us right where we want them,”
Another actual, real-life quote from US General Anthony McAuliffe in WWII: “Men, we are surrounded by the enemy. We have the greatest opportunity ever presented an army. We can attack in any direction.”
Dang! You beat me to it.
Will we get to see the thrashing, or will the next scene be Sydney muttering “Puny goons” as she and Cora walk away from the carnage?
Dave,
Since we are doing an alley scene, we need to follow the rules. After the two tiny females take down the throng of thugs don’t forget to draw in the obligatory cutaway to a drunk sitting on the curb who takes one look at his bottle then pours it out.
And don’t forget the obligatory goon crashing down just beside the drunk.
and the conveniently placed Dumpsters and Trash Cans!
Someone must be thrown into a dumpster and have the lid fall down on his head when trying to get out.
Monster Muggin in progress, please stand by for your complimentary maiming. Have a splendid day.
Sydney just crashed a bunch of spaceships, in the span of a couple seconds, on a whim without even trying, and on accident. I’d almost feel bad for these guys if I weren’t so entertained by the whole scene lol
I think it’s about time Sydney’s cast card was updated.
You know, I’d actually kinda like to see what would happen if Syndey handed over her creds and her logins.
I mean, it’s not like she has any local currency, and her logins would be to geek fansites back on Terra…
Is it me or is Sidney’s mouth super disturbing on the first and last panels? Like, I know she’s anime style, but the coloring makes her look like a super demented muppet.
Which, come to think of it, is a good description of Sydney in general.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Uncanny Valley.
Back in the early days of the comic where it was still ‘cartoony’ we could have the same expression and just wave it off. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/119.
Now in the more realistic style we expect more realistic looking characters to obey more realistic rules.
To be honest, I much more preferred the cartoony version. The early pages with her flying around, somewhere up to meeting up with the Council but before going out on the Krona quest. I think the Twilight Council meetings and the Vehemence big fight after the restaurant scene were my favourite artstyles.
Sidney’s is ADHD so her emotional reactions are going to be exaggerated. She has to be drawn “bigger than life” in order to show that.
This will be extremely painful…..for you.
When your target bursts out in laughing when you make your intimating threat you have three sensible responses. 1. Run . . . fast. They’re probably tougher than you. 2. Run . . . faster. They’re insane (by either chemical or natural means), and thereby unpredictable. 3. Run . . . as fast as you can, tripping your comrades to improve your chances of escaping. They could be both tougher than you AND insane.
I would have said “use the time you gain while they are laughing.”
Either for flight or attack.
Or they are crazy people losing their minds and laughing like demented people.
Visit alien planet Check
Defeat evil alien invaders partial check
Travel through space check
Eat alien insanely spicy alien cuisine Check
Fairy wings Check
Mugged by Aliens Check
Shown alien muggers the error of their ways, painfully. Check
Man, on this little space venture Sydney is probably checking a ton of stuff off her bucket list.
She’s gonna need a bigger bucket :P
That, sir, ma’am, and/or gentlebeing, is a win/win mixed meme.
:D
Ok, yeah this is unbalanced, but his gun is out and pointed, its lasers may punch through oobtek, and her shield is not up, and she’s not Maxima fast, so…
Say “ok, don’t hurt me,” grab the shield orb down (pulling the orbs in a chain to make it look like they’re a necklace or something) and boom, THEN say something cool.
I keep my credits in this blue floaty ball.
Someone picked the wrong alley to hide in.
After a few minutes:
Thug 1: It looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.
Thug 2: Not quite. I think your coat is on fire.
Now that I think about it, if the robber didn’t expect armed resistance,
he would have been alone.
The group shown is the correct number of Goons required for robbing two
well armed, well trained marks.
Usually.
Although, completely surrounding the target almost guarantees one of your own will be hit by friendly fire if things go south. Looks like they’re still figuring some things out.
Yeah, genie from Prince of Thieves movie, “don’t move or we’ll be shooting each other”
Most gang assaults involve brute strength against a weaker prey.
Less noise, less indication of where the actual scene was should you kill the target, just less chance to get caught.
Especially if weapons prohibitions on Fracture are as earlier theorized.
A gun (that wasn’t supposed to be there) was flashed, and the small targets are expected to be intimidated. If violence is required the gun would be a last resort so as to not attract attention.
And sensors are all over the place to pick up illegal weapons energy signatures or any out burst of no known type. Expect the cops to be there fully loaded to vaporize all of them. They might not even be living beings. Cybernetic devices or cyborgs. Ones that you can’t hack, they hack you. Think E.D. 209 but way smarter and can fly too.
Come on, Sydney, you know you want to say something like:
“This fight is completely unfair.” (Wait for bad guys to brag)
“We’ll wait, you go get more thugs.”
“You moved too soon” would also bee appropriate
And this kids is how we clean the intergalactic genepool!.Boy I have no idea how muggers could get by on a station where random species could have any type of random capabilities even when unarmed.For example for all they know Sydney could be a heavyworlder who dispite being puny can break a giant in half over her knee not to mention she has a set of anomalous orbs following her around that might even be her real body for all they know….Ah well noone said muggers were intelligent =).
A Trance Gemini moment when she stood up to a very tall man.
-paraphrase “I am half your size yet I am standing up to you, so either I am really crazy or I am a lot more dangerous than I look”
In the sense off handling a wide variety of aliens with random capabilities, i think they’re well equipped for that. They, themselves, seem to have a wide variety of aliens and tech in their gang, so they’d be up for mugging most creatures they’d find on Fracture.
Cora and Sydney are NOT most creatures.
Next page, Sydney get her shield and include Cora. Cora throw an AoE attack fro inside and both of them are instantly vaporised, leaving only the orbs. The thugs don’t know how to react.
I really do have a mobid imagination. Alternatively, Sydney raise her shield and brag about them having nothing that could harm her. A thug teleport inside he shield and stab her neck with a shiv that isn’t even sharp. While she hold her wound and realise it is her last moment, the thug comments that she relied too much on her shield. “cruel irony”, she thinks, as life quit her body.
It’s been established that the shield cannot be teleported through.
Oh cool, which strip? I forgot about that.
Technically, it was only established that Harem can’t teleport through it, but it’s probably true nobody can (at least without using similar level tech).
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1286
Star Trek teleporting is different from nightcrawler teleporting and there can easily be a few other versions. I doubt it covers methods that don’t involve passing through the shield.
It might, otherwise it’s not very good, since plenty of folk who are either natural teleporters or use sufficiently advanced tech can bypass going ‘through’ the shield.
More importantly, it has been established that this is all a flashback
would the villains be smart and retreat away from this Duo? or will they get their deserved dues? stay tuned next space day in this space comic for this space adventure
Same Space Time! Same Space Channel!
Next on “Galaxy s dumbest criminals”
No, they are there in strength and don’t read anything dangerous about them. They haven’t found someone who can wipe the floor with them yet. Today just isn’t their day.
I fully seeing an excessive use of shield and whip mode activation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGRUYwo5w3k
For the unenlightened.
That or shield and using light hook to grab mouthy one and use him the bludgeon his buddies,
Buddy, unless that pea shooter fires coherent beams of trans-baryonic energy wrapped in trifolded spirals of negative dimensional flux with a quintessence chaser, you and your boys are about to retire young the hard way.
Oh, I’m looking forward to this. :D
Also, love the bit about Space Batman. XD
“Hey, boys, come back with ten other fighters and this might actually be a fair fight!”
Sydney’s forgetting an important question that she should ask:
What is allowable under the self-defense laws here?
She shouldn’t just assume that it has the same self-defense laws as a handful of US states. In some states/countries, it’s illegal to defend yourself using weapons that are “unfair” compared to what the attackers are using. In other places, you’re required to retreat first. Some places, you have to fire a warning shot before actually hitting them, other place firing a warning shot is illegal because it demonstrates that you weren’t really in a situation where you needed to defend yourself.
They can’t retreat now because they’re surrounded. Well, Sydney could fly them out but then the goons might start shooting them out of the air. We know that the first guy is armed and it’s likely that some of the others might be as well. Turning their back on this lot doesn’t seem like a good idea at this point.
She could use her shield to bobble herself and Cora and then fly both of them out of there. They’ll probably choose a more violent solution I’m guessing.
Presumably, Cora knows the local self defense laws. Sidney just needs to follow her lead. The fact that Cora is laughing suggests she know they are allowed kick ass in this situation.
The biggest danger to Cora and Sydney right now is that the fight will draw the atention of the local authorities, who will probably be VERY interested in arresting the being who caused a pile-up in the Fracture’s space traffic.
I suspect anything that doesn’t damage the station is fair game, and if violated only means you aren’t allowed to park there any more.
A lot of their clientele are going to be packing wmds by virtue of having a damn space ship.
It’s important to remember, all laws are enforced by violence, this for they don’t apply to people who have more of it.
“Hoit”? Seriously?
They have Brooklyn accents in space? Or is that Space Bugs Bunny under that wrap?
I haven’t seen Marvin or any of the Mon-Stars in you cameo-filled backgrounds, so I’m ruling out Bugs Bunny.
Well if earth is a tourist destination, maybe they learned English in the Bronx. More likely the translator uses whatever accent Sydney expects, and she expects mugger to be New York thugs.
And she expects cops to be Irish
Little known fact. Almost everyone from Brooklyn is actually an alien, Joe Pesci is their king and Tony Danza is their general of the invasion force.
Back in 2008, I got to do a 15 day biblical archaeology tour of Israel. It was wonderful. (I took 3,194 pictures of rocks and signs explaining what the rocks were, plus other cool stuff…yes, rocks are cool, hush.)
I was expecting the heat.
I was expecting the dryness.
I was expecting the alkaline water (blecch).
I was expecting to have to take pictures of rocks and signs explaining said rocks.
I was NOT expecting our tour guide, a Russian-born Jew turned Israeli citizen…to have a New Joisey Ack-sent.
He had learned to pronounce English from someone from New Jersey, and oh boy, it showed. Every single time he opened his mouth, Jersey accent right there, folks.
Fun fact:
There are more Jews in NYC (area) than in Israel.
Bugs would end up there if he forgot to turn left at Albuquerque.
You never know how the translator will play. Found it in several Retief novels and short stores by Keith Laumer.
Monday is Christmas Eve.
Dave will probably have a scene set on Earth.
(Probably not Christmas because Sydney’s been off-world
for only a day or three.)
All I know is that in panel 2 that is one sweet blue bum.
Remember Sydney, try to keep this non-lethal. The police would probably like to trace who their fences are to reduce future muggings.
So were the fairy wings like a temporary tattoo and have now faded, or has Sydney lost them or just switched them off maybe?
Turns off most likely.
Or, just folded them back out of the way.
One of my favorite “mugging the monster” type moments is when its a large group of large individuals and the one being mugged is small like Sydney…huh maybe that’s one of the reasons I am liking (That time I got Reincarnated as a Slime) its like nothing but mugging the monster…its small and squishy get ’em…RUN Away!
I mean sure there are plenty “and over your wallet” and ts like…dude…that’s Wolverine, Crocodile Dundee, Venom, A seven foot tall man in a parking lot you five foot nothing….*dumb Rob Zombie remake had someone try to mug Michael Myers in a parkinglot…a five foot tall guy went after a like seven feet tall, chest wider than the smaller man’s entire body if you folded it in half and set the halves by each other…like…whhhyyyy.
No, when its an in disguise super girl, Trance Gemini, cyber punk android girl, squirrel girl, it feels much more satisfying to see the muggers trounced.
They’re not wrong, you know. If you peacefully hand over everything they ask for, none of them will get hurt.
Think Sydney will get to keep the space gun?
1. Cora already mentioned that offworld advanced tech isn’t allowed on Sydney’s home planet.
2. I respectfully point to the awesome webcmic A Girl And Her Fed, specifically the scene wherein the Fed asks the Girl to keep track of something mid-fight:
Souvenir, Y/N?
3. That gun probably doesn’t have nearly as many options as the PPO eventually will have.
4. Sydney already learned the build-a-(space)-bat-belt lesson, as per here:
Maximum Emcumbrance
1. – Her orbs already outclass the pistol there, which is why she’s taking a ship and not a warp gate.
2. – Neat.
3. – Sort of like how Maxima’s hand cannon is significantly less deadly than her finger?
4. – She’ll probably be issued a piece at some point anyway. Maybe she can get her range qualification for space guns done while she’s at it.
She… was already issued a ‘piece’, it’s currently in a baggie until she learns how to put it together :D
You could even say it’s in pieces.
Hey man, I’ve really enjoyed your comic for years now and I’ve noticed what feels to me like a slow change of theme over the duration. It’s gotten more… slapstick? I know you’ve always taken a pretty “superhero” approach to reality that I feel has gotten more pronounced, and I know that sounds silly but hear me out. The guy with the gun? He could just shoot Sidney right now and she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it as she doesn’t have any kind of super-reflexes.
It was a good chuckle, even noticing that discrepancy I still laughed at them. But I feel like you’re making the mistake of having the characters respond in a way that the -audience- should be responding while the heroes do their smashing.
If all that was your intent then carry on, just thought it might have slipped under the radar.
I just did another archives crawl. I’d say it has gotten Alot less slapstcky than it used to be, especially compared to year 1 .
I dunno, man, most muggers don’t want violence. They want easy cash, etc. The weapon is 51% or more for show. If they wanted to commit actual violence, they’d just knife the girls and ransack their dead or dying bodies.
Most people will hand over their wallets rather than fight, which makes this “hand over your money and nobody gets hoit/hurt” strategy quite successful. You’re inconvenienced out of cash and identity cards, etc, but I’d say 95% of the time, nobody gets hurt indeed, and muggers know this.. Their victims know this. It’s a polite robbery. Especially since neither gal appears to be carrying a threatening weapon.
Remember, The Orbs Do Not Count As Threatening Weapons…because Maxima’s finger is as powerful or more powerful, yet Sydney, already knowing how powerful her finger-blast is, didn’t feel threatened by it nearly as much as by the gun…and these guys don’t know jack about those orbs.
Stabbed people bleed all over.
Strangled or smothered people don’t, and fatally stomped mostly bleed internally.
Banking on the probability that the guy with the gun won’t shoot you when all you’re getting out of the deal is a chuckle seems like a poor choice to me. I’m not saying you’re wrong about the probability, just that the trade-off seems pretty crappy even at low risk odds.
Sydney should probably be grabbing the shield orb while laughing.
^More damn kobolds, I’m just trying to get back to the inn to save, and these wastes of time show up. Every damn time.^
I notice that Cora made absolutely no attempt to get her to go back and take responsibility for the damage. Nothing says seasoned adventure like you and your friends breaking other people’s things and then just walking away.
If they’re pros they must have a way to deal with stuff like this, for exsample a tiny cloaked dart could’ve already been fired into them and thus bypass any active defences and drug them at command
There is a story of a pair of bank robbers who pulled a bank robbery in broad daylight.
Unfortunately, they chose a bank with several FBI agents as customers.
Who happened to be standing in line when the whole thing went down.
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/09/30/archives/2-attempt-to-rob-a-bank-with-11-fbi-men-inside-2-try-to-rob-an-east.html
Like this “Darwin Award” candidate
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dead-stupid/
Instead of laughing.. shouldn’t she bubble?
Been gone from Max for less than a day. Already forgot her impulse training command :p
Now let see how smart they are. If 2 girl go laving in our face and are totally not shock. There need to go of a waring there is something good wrong.