Grrl Power #720 – Beat the press… to the parking lot
Aren’t most news sources these days “The Daily Panicker”?
Arianna chose her job, not because it was easy, but because it was hard. She didn’t count on Sydney, whose presence adds a minimum of three standard deviations to… well, pretty much anything she’s involved in. The amount of spice she likes in food (that’s like, +10 SDs), knowledge of pop-culture trivia, chance of spontaneous distractibility, and of course, ease of doing public relations involving her.
Although for height, she’s actually only like -1.5 standard deviations, weirdly enough. That assumes the average woman in the US is 5′ 4″, which seems short to me. Maybe because most women wear some sort of heel all the time, but they seem taller to me. I would guess 5′ 5″ or 5′ 6″ honestly. This is from the same source that says the average male height is only 5′ 9″, which again, seems short to me. I probably have some sort of observation bias for tall people.
But much like Sydney, I digress.
Arianna’s been playing her deadly game with the press, and after Sydney made huge and repeated splashes with the press, any absence is sure to be noticed.
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Now that I think about it, the big thing about the time skip is that when the updraft towers were first shown only one was completed and when Deus left for the Fracture both were operational.
Averages are silly bs numbers. The reason that seems short to you in that there are plenty of people running around who are four feet tall, but basically no one who is eight feel tall, so the number trends lower. The “median” height, the height the greatest number of men stand at, is probably around like 5’11, but the presence of incredibly short men will skew the average down.
Whoops, I meant the “mode” when I said “median”.
*shrug*
I’m 5’8″, but the tallest person on my mom’s side of the family. My mom is 5’2″ and dad is 6’1″.
My neighbors are dwarves (shorter than 4’10.5″).
Then again you have to look at racial statistics for that nation’s averages. Like a friend of mine that works in the game industry (successfully unlike me) is short enough that the top of his head doesn’t go much higher than my throat, but I don’t think that’s rare since he’s half Chinese / half Japanese.
I hope I’m not being racist inadvertently but just skimming some Anime it seems
as if for young women being tall is a severe handicap. (I’m looking at you Gun Girl!)
So Supermodel/Women Basketball Players/Amazons are a turn off in some cultures??
I don’t think that’s racist. Mostly because men averaging taller than women is universal among humans. In every culture, the men are going to average a little taller, and that becomes the preference. Women generally prefer a taller man, and men generally prefer a shorter woman.
Of course not every individual feels that way. I prefer taller women myself, though I ended up marrying my shorter wife for other much more important reasons.
But ultimately, yes. Tall women are generally a turn-off. They can be a turn-on in our media, on screen, when you’re not actually standing next to them. But as soon as they stand next to an obviously taller woman, the difference in height is intimidating, and generally a turn-off.
The “turn off” probably has to do with the man’s individual self-confidence. I really love tall women, especially if they have the self-confidence to also wear heels. (Oddly enough, legs aren’t particularly important in my rating of attractiveness.)
And, yes, I also married a woman (who happens to be slightly above US average height) based on an awesome overall package that didn’t happen to include that, but that includes lots of important character traits… such as that she is intimidated by very little, and doesn’t put up with nonsense from me or anyone else.
The average height of a U.S. man is 5′ 9.5″. The median height is 5′ 9.3″. As expected in any very large population, the average and median are the same or almost the same. I was not able to find the mode for U.S. men anywhere. However, one must remember that Celebrities, Media personalities and successful men in general are going to skew to the high side.
Height is generally acknowledged to follow a good approximation to a bell curve, i.e. there are about the same number of people much shorter than the average as there are much taller. Income, wealth and other things to do with money are another matter entirely, and are of course skewed upward.
That is not how a median works. A median is when you sort your data points and take the value from the center of that array. You can have 1000 people at 5′ , 1000 at 6′ and one at 5’11”. The median will be 5’11”
OK, so Arianna lied but maybe there’s another lie to get out of this?
Sydney DID NOT just land in another spaceship with a new batch of alien refugees. She just took some time off of her “training” to escort a “shuttle” of “asylum seekers” who wish to petition to stay instead of leave with the others.
Or something like that.
She was just training on the now abandoned Alari home world. Further recon in space resulted in finding the Fracture where she can return to if required. The new group as asylum seekers can potentially help with knowledge of tech and aliens and comparative accounts to determine if the other group has been truthful.
Or she was “investigating” the Alari homeworld, in light of the arrival of the refugees.
That also works.
Except that the press will ask how she can reach an alien planet an unspecified number of light years away in a matter of days or hours, and what this means for NASA, the US military’s overseas bombardment capability and of course the inevitable questions on whether or not ARCHON has been hiding the existence of “Little green martians” which Arianna can’t disclose for several reasons, not the least of which because it would hurt PR that Archon has been hiding yet more secrets, what more could they be hiding? Why should we trust them if they can’t be transparent with us? All that BS.
Lots of ways for that one explanation to spiral out of control.
Rule #1 about dealing with the press and dealing with law proceedings, “Say as little as possible while answering the questions asked, and keep your answers laserfocused on the point being made and don’t elaborate more than you need to.”
Except a giant alien space craft practically landing on their building, out of which we assume Sydney may just walk, right in front of the press.
So…something has to be said, and too many lies or diversions around questions will raise those exact same concerns only with worse long term trust issues.
and of course we have the other X-factor, will Cora care about Archon’s secrets and not care if the press of one country on one planet is in ear shot of saying stuff like she has brought Sydney back, off handedly mentioning the Mecha-Cthulu that took out the Alari world…the only thing we know Cora is likely to keep to herself is the possibility of Sydney’s orbs being Nth tech; and only because that would draw much worse attention to Earth than just bad local press.
(and by bad I mean if this tech from *Oh we can reprogram the laws of physics and create pocket universes* level beings than everything from the next just barely FTL up to Ascended (3rd stage civilization using local vernacular), will be interested. Kind of a pain when Vorlons and Alterans and such start showing up wanting to keep their hands on your balls(
and I still suspect Cora isn’t a mercenary in the broad sense but a freelance agent in the employ of the Xevoarchy.
I think that that’s both a very optimistic and very pessimistic view of events and Cora’s disposition. But I repeat, while something will have to be said, it will very likely not be now. Someone as experienced as Arianna will shelve the press conference with a quick excuse like “ARCHON will not disclose any relationships with any extra-terrestrial entities at this time. We will have a statement for you tomorrow.” Then shoo the press away and order sydney inside and ask Cora if she’d come inside.
Or, more likely for comedy’s sake, she won’t assume Cora knows english and gesticulate wildly to try and get her to come in xD
They never did say WHERE she was sequestered for her training…
Oooh, good spin actually. Now if only Arianna has a chance to present it before Sydney opens her mouth and starts dropping all kinds of inadvertent hints.
Best case scenario for both readers and Arianna is that the next page is a splash panel of TMH leading a bunch of Alari refugees down the ship ramp, followed by Sydney leading them all straight pass the press corps with nothing but a “no comment”.
Of course, Arianna being the team scapegoat, they won’t actually make it to the building before someone with a universal translator starts talking to the press, and Cora and crew will pop out to say “nice meeting you Sydney, we’ll have meet up in another galaxy again sometime!”
My vote would be for Frix rushing out to return Sydney’s panties.
I cannot upvote this idea enough. ++++++++++
Amusing idea, but given her personality, I cannot really imagine that she would get dressed without them.
Maybe she have spares in her utility belt.
HOw about Cora’s ship displaying Sydney’s panties on an external antennae array? You can’t get much more cliche than that, I think.
“Sydney, you forgot your Rainbow Dash panties!”
“Wait, do you guys really get My Little Pony all the way out there?”
“Nah, we swing by Earth every so often to grab the latest batch of episodes.”
I don’t see the problem. She could just claim that with the arrival of the alari the world became aware of the wider spectrum of galactic civilizations and as the most powerful and/or influential country on the planet was contacted by a supposedly well meaning third (or would that be fourth?) party offering to bring them up to speed.
As to why they send a new recruit instead of a seasoned veteran could be played off as a requirement by the new acquaintances for someone with an open mind.
I think Arianna’s forehead curl reveals her Kryptonian heritage.
Because she shows great Kandor in interviews?
I’ll just show myself out.
I’m kinda torn between the ideas of you being awarded for the Superpun of the Year Award or being drawn & quatered.
My wife is 5’4” and it seems to me that lots of women are taller than her. But ,Albert that’s because she doesn’t wear heels.
Are posts not showing up again? I posted a reply but there’s nothing even after going back and forward through chapters.
Try the old stand-by of clicking on a few “previous” links, then hit the “latest” link… or refreshing your browser cache, i think it’s the F5 button?? or, more drastic, close your browser entirely then re-open it a few bits later.
Your perception may be colored by where you are. I’m male 6-feet and currently in Arkansas. Most folks areound here are close to my height and the women who are 6-feet tall tend to have moved from Texas. If I go back to the Old Country (Ohio) and walk into a Target store, my eye level is above the head height of the entire store. All these short little Ohioans running around from multiple ethnicities. My wife is 5’6 and is also average here, tall in Ohio. The winters stunt their growth… ha ha.
I don’t know… isn’t that the sound effect for the Calamarians* arrival?
* Well, what would YOU call a race of Space Squids?
That was my thought as well, that they made that “VREEE” sound…
It may be on the other channels, but I think one of the major discussions going on around the globe would be in the religious community and their take on the ‘we are no longer unique’ discovery. It must be quite a revelation. Maybe somebody could write a book about it.
1. There isn’t “A religious community” there are multiple “religious communities” and many of their different belief systems have diametrically opposed components. There is no rational way to tie them together.
2. Some of those “religious communities” are already predicated on the existence of life outside of earth.
O.B. Juan didn’t say ‘a’, said ‘the’, which covers ‘every’
‘The’ implies singular not every, to me at least.
Correct your understanding then.
Saying “the” in this context is the same as saying “the neighborhood,” “the academic community,” or “the international community,” which does not imply homogeneous identity but a collective of varying factions under one common umbrella interest. This is a common use, and you are wrong for limiting your understanding from it.
There is a single international cross-cultural community of religions, just as there may be a single religious community in a small town. One must be mature in one’s contextual understanding of what a writer says, to infer which one “the” refers to. It is not a matter of “correctness”, merely a matter of correct context.
1) there in no way to tie them together because none of them are based on rationality and are mostly based on peoples unwillingness to take responsibility/charge of/for their lives and is a great way to creat an “Other” to blame for you problems so you can take their stuff and kill them. But that’s an informed opinion and I will highly amused if proven wrong. A state that can only be proven after I kick the bucket. ;)
2) Really? I only know of two actuals and both of those are modern cult/scams created by American con men. One in the 19th century and the other in the 20th…of the 2 the book of Mormon is far better crafted and better. The scientology is a hack job by a hack writer. I’ve yet to see anyone prove hubbard wasn’t a hack.
Keith –
1) Unless you have a Ph.D. of Comparative Religious Studies, your opinion is merely a typical opinion, not an “informed” opinion. I’ll even accept a Master’s of Cultural Anthropology or of any Sociological specialty that includes direct study of how religions have affected different populations.
The real irony of your claim is that the pretense of intellectualism about one’s opinion is just the in-group/out-group affectation of Western educational culture. In other words, it’s group-think based on accepting hearsay from people whom you trust about people whom they don’t know.
2) Since you only seem to know of two religions that accept the potential existence of intelligent beings not from our planet, that pretty much guts any claim you might have to knowing how many religions there are out there, what they are like, and what role they serve for their adherents. Several other New Age religions are pretty explicit about it, but several older religions can be interpreted that way as well. (At least one offshoot of Santeria, for example, but each major religion has dozens of official factions with variant interpretations and adaptations of the basic texts.)
Dal, thank you for proving point 1. As to point 2, I was keeping it simple…because there are many who as you say. Can be interpreted that way, Hinduism and many of the American belief systems. Hopi and Aztec come to mind. Whilst I have not bothered with degrees, I am far better read than most would realize. It is an infinite universe after all, though there are some astronomers and such who have theories that disagree.
I also note the bias against western educational culture and respect it because, dang is it screwed up. Not at the base, but rather the presumptions and assumptions (I wont get into how biased and STUPID anthropology can be about things like monument construction)
and oh boy is THAT going to be a doozy when the Fanatics and Zealots of ALL religions get data that proves today’s “Aliens helped uplift Humanity in the Ancient past” conspiracy theorists ere RIGHT!!!
Granted it’s a one panel, probably NOT canon, humor piece about Horus being an Alien Sex-tourist, but still..
What IF:?
Sid has the Flaw ‘Weirdness Magnet’. Arianna is unprepared.
A flaw she shares with me. My life is a litany of weird coincidence and odd stuff.
the weirdest thing is that if nothing weird happens, that’s weirder than weird things happening
So Sidney gets a extra 15 points then?
if syd just pop out and say hey I back from my adventure in deep space.. Arianna is going to have a fit . Hopfully shes watching this live from bridge and has the brian cells to light bee teliport into the building and have Cora come out and say shes space AAA and ask where the disabled ship is..
With Sydney being so genre savvy, that makes it pretty clear that *somebody* really hates Arianna.
Who is it? Candidates include Sydney, Max, and Dabbler.
Sydney should have reported to Max.
Cora should have reported to Dabbler.
Max and Dabbler should have reported to Arianna. In any event, Sydney should have known better than to appear right as Arianna was giving a press release.
My guess is it’s all three: Sydney reported to Max, Cora reported to Dabbler, neither told Arianna, and Sydney chose the timing and exact placement of arrival.
after ticking off the “punch c’thulu” and “respawn” boxes off of her bucket list, it only seems fair that she take her crack at “trans-orbital dynamic entry”, doesn’t it?
“That’s one more to cross off – The List! From the middle, this time.”
Cora DID contact Dabbler before returning with Sydney. Dabbler, in turn, also reported that to Max within the hour before Cora actually arrived. It’s a pretty safe bet that General Faulk & other higher-ups know it by that time too.
There’s nothing at all about that “Vreeeee” to indicate that it’s Sydney arriving. It’s just as likely to be signalling an attack by some villainous supers or a surprise visit from the Alari refugees.
Vreee is the sound of an Alari Soul Battery opening up. I recommend running.
(Sitting in Number 2’s 8-ball chair): In this case, Number Six, I would speculate that this particular “Vreeeee” Is the sound of Coras’ ship’s Transporter Effect.
Comedic timing demands the Sydney is arriving, and in a comic, there are few forces more powerful.
You guys missed a key possibility
What happens when the cargo door opens, and Sydney walks out, accompanied by Demons and a large number of ALARI!
How are the people who are already panicked about an alien invasion going to react to that.
Well, we know Max knew Sid and friends were arriving and intends to meet them. Of course, she can be delayed or distracted, but she will likely be present to maintain order. That could result in everybody being quickly hustled out of sight.
However, the reporters may get to “charge” the Alari [they may be murderous horrors, but they are a STORY], who will really get to play up the refugee angle.
ARIANNA (MAKING A SWIFT RECOVERY):
… and that training regime includes learning first contact protocols, with alien races, as we can see behind us right now. Please welcome the MIGHTAY HALO and our very own USA alien visitors. Our plan will be to ensure America gets an equal advantage in high technology acquisition!
I could see that.
Arçhon would recruit people who think on their feet for the PR position.
Does Arçhon rhyme with Garçon?
There’s a difference between good PR spin and committing publicly to things like national policies that are waaaay above your pay grade.
It’s been stated that being a super hero pays well.
Is Sydney the ‘Sponsor’ for 39 refugee aliens??
Responsible for them somehow?
Her name on 39 separate complicated immigration forms?
Is it weird that I could totally see her getting a chain of comic book shops of the ground with the simply customer magnet of actual aliens employed as salespeople thus severly lowering eventuell costs for the sponsorship in the long run as well as at the same time turning the refugees into taxpaying citizens?
And, given that her shop is called “Event Horizon Comics”, each store has a wormhole that connects their stockrooms together so they save money with not needing any inventory overlap.
That’s always been the cheapest, best solution for illegal anything and anyone – legalize ’em, employ ’em, tax ’em.
worked for gambling, alcohol, and to great extent in the 70’s, 80’s, immigrants.
The inferences in conversations within the comics and within the commentary with each page point to the Alari ship continuing on to an Alari colony after it is repaired. They won’t need sponsors
Thats only true if the refugees Halo picked up want to go with whoever is on that ship and the people on it allow it.
If I remember Sciona correctly and extrapolate that the rulers of the Alari are like her I find that unlikely.
If Alari biology somewhat parallels earth biology, the Alari rescued from the Fracture need others of their kind to perpetuate the species. It is unlikely that they consist of family units in which everyone survived.
Given the amount of death they just experienced they would most likely seek to be with others of their kind and seek solace in raising children.
37 isn’t enough to start much of a sustainable community.
Yeah, I don’t see Sydney’s Alari being too happy to meet up with the ‘They left us to die’ elites over in Deus’ country.
Personally I think it’s just the OPPOSITE: the 37 Alari on board are the ELITISTS because THEY actually had enough MONEY to get themselves off planet… and don’t you think those star ship captains didn’t charge through the nose for that ‘privilege’ of being able to leave. Granted, it didn’t work out like they THHOUGHT it would, seeing as how those Captains sucked their bank accounts dry and then stranded them there on Fracture… they got rich, AND at the same time forced those self-same Elitist Bastards ™ to fend for themselves like stereotypical working-class schlubs have to do in revenge.
whereas i’ll bet that the ones on the colony ship are probably what most governments would LOVE to do with their welfare/undesirable/criminal classes of society… ship them away from HERE, in an out-of-sight-out-of-mind kind of thing… the same thing that quite a few countries here on Earth did in times past: do places/events like Australia, Siberia, and The Trail-of-Tears ring any bells? I’ll bet that the CREW of the ship is probably well trained for their jobs, but the most of the “colonists” are not so well trained and are basically cannon-fodder for whatever environment the ship lands in…
OOooh… i just had an evil thought:
What if the “damaged” Alari “colony ship” is ACTUALLY a FULLY FUNCTIONAL Trojan Horse / Q-Ship? and all those “Colonists” are actually Shock-Troops? sent in in advance of the “real” colony ships to take out our ability to fight back and co-ordinate defenses when they arrive…
Given the fact that Sciona had plans for a conquest of Earth, and that she apparently was in contact with like minded Alari back on her homeworld, the idea that this “refugee ship” was part of the planned invasion seems quite possible.
The other Alairi ship is the ‘B Ark’???
So Deus invited them to land in Galytn because he had a craving for a Gin and Tonic?
*and by sequestered we mean sitting in a hottub sharing quality time with an alien furry medical officer
With him on board I hope the hot tub has really good filters on the recirculating pump.
Given the surplus of space on board, I bet Frix has a room filled with great works of art recreated in the medium of hairballs.
Behold the Mighty Halo has returned more powerful than ever!
I have smacked down world destroyers, discovered new worlds, eaten alien spicy food, *coughandotherstufftooprivatetotalkaboutherecough*, and now I….is that the press?
Honestly though, Sydney as genre savvy as she is I suspect will take the small time skip in stride (unstable worm holes and all) and be more worried about not being around for the comic shop than anything.
*Alien spaceship lands in parking lot*
*Hatch slowly begins to open, glowing fog pours out, spooky alien music in background*
oooooOOOOOOOooooooo *record scratch*
*Sydney hops out of hatch*
“Hi, everyone! What did I miss?”
*mobbed by reporters*
Ariana, alone on steps: That’s it. Today, I go full super-villainess.
Nah, it’ll take her a week to draft up the PR plan, contact toy manufacturers, check the legalities, and hire Ashley to make her a supervillain business suit.
just think about the dolls, action figures, movie and comic book rights, even those just involving
Cora and different sets of crewmales, prosthetics and outfits. It’s like a whole new Barbie doll franchise.
The Cora doll comes with both designer handbags and designer hands.
She’s been working with Max for quite some time – my money is that her Villainess Cost/Benefit spreadsheet is one of the most well-groomed.
Who says they have to be DIFFERENT spreadsheets? Keyser Söze / Verbal said that “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist”…
what if Arianna’s version of that is to convince “The Good Guys” that she’s on their side too?
Heck, you’ve probably all heard the saying that “Crime Doesn’t Pay” right… well yeah, it doesn’t pay (as much) because doing it in a perfectly LEGAL way means you get MORE profit than when trying to do the SAME THING trying to fight the Law to do so in an ILLEGAL manner!
The degree of profitability in an ILLEGAL approach, compared to a perfectly LEGAL one, would depend on the ^success^ in keeping said illegality ^hidden^.
I expect Sydney to get off the ship and say
“Don’t worry, I’ve returned from being lost on the other side of the galaxy”
later’ “Sydney.. what the heck did you bring?” “Souvenirs?” “One of them is attempting to gnaw on Math. Though I admit his reflexes are improving.. he hasn’t screamed in pain in 3 minutes”
Please oh please have her float down wearing those light wings!!!
There is zero need, whatsoever, for any of the Alari refugees on Cora’s ship to disembark at this point. Cora can EASILY fly over to Galatyn, and negotiate for them to take on more refugees, and even help with ship repairs to get them on their way again, so they can get to an actual Alari colonyworld.
(*Caveat: unless the squidward folks have trashed all the Alari colonyworlds, too…though you’d think someone would’ve heard about that by now, broadcast it on InterStellar News, and Cora & crew surely should’ve heard about it by now.)
(**Mind you, Cora will be happy to meet Dabbler in person, hug her, drag her off somewhere private, and rant about WTFHELLZ Did You Send Me To Pick UP?? Also, here’s a bill for holo fairy wings…)
(***…and a bill for cleaning the post-grakz plumbing & biowaste sludge filters…)
This can only end well for all parties involved.
Snerk! Yeah, Right…. Can “I” have some of those drugs you’re on?, I mean surely you must be hallucinating, right?
Good to see Suzie’s rival reporters again: Pinkie, and the other two, at least we have a name for SmugD’s younger half-brother :P
No one seems to be considering that the ship could be descending within sight of the reporters, but landing behind the complex.
There’s every reason to believe neither Cora nor her crew would want to land somewhere unsecured like they were a boat of space tourists.
There is also the possibility her ship is too huge to really land there and will stay hovering over while Cora and Sydney descend. We didn’t get a good from the ground scale before, but the inside seemed pretty big.
Maybe it’s bigger on the inside?
There’s also reason to believe that Cora is every bit as mischievous as her close friend Dabbler, and would do exactly that given the plausible deniability of not getting in trouble for it. “Oh sorry Xevoarchy rep, I saw the Alari ship on the ground and all over their news, and thought Earth travel was out in the open now. My bad.”
So for as sharp as Cora seemed to be, phoning in and asking how she should approach did not occur to her? Welp, this could be a fine mess.
Something tells me, (subtle) isn’t her thing. Also she did ask, found out aliens are now known to Earth, so came right down on the drop off point; we assume they scanned for air traffic and zipped right past all of it.
Perfect timing Halo, way to screw over poor Adrianas excuse why you aint around
news sources these days? I think it’s usually like and been like that
Never did see if Sydney caught any ZZZs since going MIA.
If she’s running on adrenaline and endorphins she’ll be unconscious in 5 minutes.
Or….
She must have spent a few days on the ship and Dave saw no point in showing her sleeping.
Halo is like children playing in their room.
When you stop hearing them you should check.
Too bad they are landing in a public area. I was hoping for a scene where they landed in a grassy field and we see Sydney standing in the open hatch saying “Come along Frix. Walkies!”
I would think that when Cora contacted Dabbler to say they are almost there, *someone* would have smart enough to say “we have a bit of a situation with aliens going on here, please don’t land on top of our building or in Central Park, keep hidden” or whatever.
If that’s Cora’s ship landing right next to Archon HQ, that’s just dumb, comedic value or not. Just because one ship landed doesn’t mean it’s ok for every alien ship that comes along to land where they feel like.
A cilindrical light beam appears from the spaceship aimed to the ground. And everyone can see a familiar figure inside the beam, floating, descending slowly striking a Superman-like pose.
Surprise twist – DaveB is trolling us all and this is just Max landing with some flashlights and a sound generator, to cover for Cora sneaking into the back parking lot.
Going back a bit, our story starts with a world where the existence of superheroes can be reasonably doubted. Then there is a flashback and we see time pass to where not only are superheroes famous, but we have a bunch of space aliens moving in, and the fantasy element may becoming public knowledge as well.
This is all no problem if we assume the flashback is over, but a lot of us think the timing is well out of whack [Total comic time has been estimated at a week, when it should be a year.] So we need to read in that extra time. When there is a scene break, we should assume a serious time break before the next scene. When a character makes a statement that can be read in several ways, the way that says more time has passed is to be preferred. For that matter, most of us routinely make misstatements about time and there is no good reason to insist the characters are more accurate [except when they are being used as clocks.]
I really think at some point Dave is going to have to make the intro be non-canon.
It served it’s purpose as a nice prologue to the story, but now it just gets in the way.
“Total comic time has been estimated at a week”
That was before halo’s grand adventure. While HALO has only spent a day or so on the alari homeworld and the rift combined it is pretty clear from some of the comments that she has been gone for AT LEAST a week and possibly several months or more. Harems comment to dabbler that “there were too many of her” indicates the portal they went through shifted them into the future, and this is why dabbler was able to call cora and have her arrive in time to see halo leaving. Cora does not have halo’s nifty aetherium causeway, so the travel time was likely several days if not weeks. How did cora get there in time? Easy, dabbler called her weeks before halo ever arrived on the alari homeworld, because the portal was unstable and shifted them into the future. When they went back through it they got back to the past. Answer this: Why would the press have even noticed halo’s absence in the mere 1 or 2 days she has been gone? Not only have they noticed halo is gone, they have asked ariana about it so many times she is sick of repeating the answer “halo is in training”. No one would be suspicious of a new military recruit not being on the news for a single day. to notice her absence its going to have to be at least a week long. I would guess months. remember one other fact. Sciona was astonished by the alari homeworlds destruction, because as she said, she had been in contact with them just a few days before and nothing was wrong. How was the world destroyed so fast? Answer: it wasnt. The destruction was actually several weeks in their future. they skipped ahead in time through the portal and thats why sciona was caught by surprise.
Well argued. Some additional points are that Dave has mentioned, in his blog at one point, during Sydney’s training, that time had advanced a lot since the previous page (I forget just how much, maybe a week or more, but not months).
Finally the ‘flash forwards’ (as Dave prefers to call it) did have Maxima welcoming back ‘the big guns’ (a.k.a. Sydney), which is certainly appropriate for Halo reporting back to duty after a period of absence fighting aliens on another planet! As this was (in the context of the flash forwards) “a few months ago”, it is entirely possible that we are within a few pages of catching up with that scene.
Or, if the amount of time Sydney has been offword (with or without time travel) is still less than that period, we may get to see her complete her basic training properly. Which could take several years, of comic time, if Dave has more stuff planned.*
Although it may be a combination of both, in Sydney being whisked off to quietly finish her training (and serve a period of quarantine, in conjunction with that, which I think the authorities and public would demand), then having that scene, again in a few pages (with a suitable training montage).
* At the beginning of this book (book 3) Dave indicated that it would encompass Sydney’s training, after which we will have caught up with the flash forwards. As the book has already gotten quite fat, since then, I doubt that we will see too much more before he winds it up).
I have an effect named after me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzfu5pYv63c?t=261s
I suspect the link will not start the YouTube video at the right point (grr grrr), if so the key bit starts at 4 mins 21 seconds in.
If you are a scientist (et al), who found your way to Grrl Power, thanks to searching for “YORP”, please raise a paw!
Your art style has evolved enough that I no longer recognize Arianna.
So looking at march’s vote incentive, I really like the picture and max looks great, but I don’t buy Max posing for a cheesecake picture in skimpy gym clothes, and those free weights are useless to her unless those numbers on them are tonnes instead of pounds or Kilos
also, am i the only one that’s twitchy because the numbers are all mirrored?
I dunno…if she can turn her powers off while weight lifting, they could still have a pretty big impact. Like, the more powerful she was while her powers were off, the more powerful she might be when they were on, maybe?
There’s an issue of SheHulk where she does just that.
Interstellar Boxing or something.
I have that entire mini-series! She’s training up to fight some Champion of the Universe (an alien boxer who just so happens to have the Infinity Stone of Power), but weightlifting while she’s in She-Hulk form doesn’t do any good. So she gets the idea to start weightlifting in Jennifer Walters form, so when she Hulks out, her strength increases exponentially. And then she advises the contest’s judges that the Infinity Stone is a foreign object, and foreign objects aren’t allowed in a boxing match. So the Champion sets the Infinity Stone of Power aside, and She-Hulk summarily whomps him good.
Then the Champion vows revenge on She-Hulk, and he decides to do so by lending the Infinity Stone of Power to She-Hulk’s nemesis, Titania. He then trains Titania on both how to fight and how to properly wield the Infinity Stone. Titania then expresses her gratitude by dropping a good-sized chunk of mountain on the Champion, killing him and ensuring that he can’t strip her of the Infinity Stone by calling it back to him.
Supervillains are NOT known for proper displays of gratitude. >;-)
That reminds me of ‘Dial M for Monkey / Rasslor’.
“Fight me or I destroy your world!”
Rasslor was a parody of Champion.
Wow, it’s been a while…and yet, still I feel compelled to return, and to comment. Truly you are blessed, although whether by a fell spirit, or one benign, I do not know. =P
I have to say, I like this story, still, but I do have to wonder–Deus seems to be the primary driver behind the story, as witnessed by Galtyn inviting the aliens to come visit (although there are clearly other drivers out there), but…I dunno. I’ve kind of lost a lot of respect for him, after he boned Scion, and even more after finding out that he was regularly boning Harem, as well.
By the way, I realize it’s a bit late, but there are many reasons why Max would object to Harem being part of a honey trap, and a surprisingly small number of them have to do with Max’s obvious near-militant feminism. More importantly, that kind of undercover operation can exert a heavy emotional toll on those who agree to be the honey, especially when they are trapping somebody as charismatic and intelligent as Deus–even if Harem escapes the whole thing physically safe and sound, there will be questions as to her loyalty going forward (it would not be the first time the seducer has fallen under the spell of their victim, particularly in this scenario), and even when it’s over, and she’s proven her loyalties, the emotional cost to Harem will be severe–that kind of intentional betrayal leaves its marks on the person who does it, whether they want it to be or not. I think at this point, a substantial percentage of how the story eventually winds up concluding is going to rest on Deus, and how he falls out–does he see Maxima as just another notch on his bedpost, maybe as the one who got away, or is he perhaps falling prey to a deeper emotional connection between the two of them? One of these makes him a major heel, one who will never really be able to side with ARCHON for long, and will inevitably have to be destroyed…but the other may mark him as simply being an independent operator, whose intentions may well be at least partially benign.
On another level…Deus takes some substantial risks in inviting the alien refugees to port in Galtyn, particuarly as he likely does not have a strong ability to defend his country from massed super-powered attackers. There are a large number of nations that would like very dearly to get control over Galtyn, and without Deus, that job becomes considerably easier. BY inviting the aliens to Galtyn, he has increased both his personal, and his financial risk considerably, for little to no IMMEDIATE benefit, especially given that French Guinea or Cape Canaveral would both almost certainly be much better locations for a major interstellar starport, since both have the water access to move significant cargoes without resorting to supers (his current arrangements would NOT stand up to international meddling, by the way). Presumably he has a plan to deal with this, but I cannot imagine what it might be.
P.S. Here’s a hilarious twist you could throw into the mix at some point–at one point, the length of cohabitation required for a common law marriage in South Carolina was three months, which came to light when a movie star (I’ve never learned the name) shacked up with a SYT for three months while filming some movie or other down there, and then had to get a divorce to get rid of her when the filming ended. What if Max and Deus’s relationship to each other is sort of partially based on the same thing–they shacked up twenty years ago in a state with very short common law marriage requirements, and now Deus has to play nice with her, or she files for divorce and gets half of everything he owns?
That South Carolina movie star story is probably apocryphal. Under common law marriage rules, both of the parties must intend to be married and must present themselves as husband and wife, which no actor needs to do in that situation.
A couple of problems with your shacking up with Max 20 years ago idea…
First off, this exchange on page #407 doesn’t sound to me like a relationship that ever made it into the bedroom. Maxima just doesn’t strike me as the type who would sleep with a “business partner.” She’s way too professional to let something like that happen. Unfortunately her professionalism is what prevents her and Hiro from exploring anything deeper than a professional relationship.
The second big problem is that according to the cast page Maxima is currently 34 years old. Deus may be a horny Machiavellian tyrant, but I doubt that he is a pædophile who would have shacked up with a 14 year old girl.
I think it is far more likely that Deus wanted (and still wants) to get into Max’s panties, but she is quite immune to his charms.
The initial Max-Deux meeting was 10-15 years ago, not because Deux would not have done a 14 year old [Like most males, he seems to believe that a girl has the right to decide when she is old enough, a feminist attitude that a lot of feminist don’t seem to accept]. Rather, their meeting is described as a business meeting [whether or not that was monkey business.] At a younger age, Max would have been heavily escorted. Deux’ gifts would have been out of line, while merely forward in she were 20,. And The affair went a lot further than either is willing to admit now. Max’s attitude is typical of a moderately intense affair that went sour. [My bet is that she broke it off. He seems to be working to restart it.]
On a different subject, Deux likes taking risks. He thinks he knows exactly where to step. So far he seems to be right. So he has likely attracted by the risks of having the aliens in his toy country. [We can’t rule out that he had that in mind when he took over the place.]
Oh no. We have ourselves a pedo.
So this is our introduction to Heath Dodson. It’s the first time we’ve ever seen him (as far as I recall), and thus far he’s only gotten to say a couple of sentences.
So why do I dislike him already? o_O
I believe you see him in the center panel at the top of #153.
You mean this episode?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-153-xuriel-tantalis-friend-to-conspiracy-theorists/
I don’t know; I just don’t see the resemblance there. :-/
DaveB‘s art has changed over the many years, heck, even Pinkie has changed (let’s just hope she changed her knickers)