Grrl Power #746 – You’ve got the touch…
Hmm.
I wrote a follow up page to this one, but in a rare moment of editorial discipline, I decided you guys could probably figure this one out, and I could just move on. Besides, that lets me cut back to Sydney sooner, and usually anything she’s doing is more amusing than anyone else.
Arsenal book 8 is available for preorder. Should be out on the 30th. So if you haven’t read the other seven, you can just squeeze them in if you get to it.
If you more into vengeancy superhero stuff, Jeffery H. Haskell (the author of the Full Metal Superhero series) has you covered in a series called The Wraith. It’s like… Punisher meets, uh, well if I say who I want to, it might spoil some stuff. Anyway, she shoots a lot of bad guys.
I dug both series. I mean, obviously, or I wouldn’t be recommending them to you guys.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Ooo, Escorpia was a Super? That will be… handy :P
Yea, that is my take too. With some kind of fascination power.
I think it’s more of a “Drugging” power, hence the “Sciona’s going to get invited to all the college parties” at the bottom.
Yea, might be a drunkenness or ruffies effect. Possibly even a full blown mind control, which in the absence of Sciona giving any direct orders just has the victim standing there awaiting orders. The sub text tending to point to the former. But the loyalty pledges at fraternity/sorority initiations could be seen as turning them into controlled puppets of the senior members. So the latter remains a plausible option, albeit an outside runner.
Didn’t mean that kind of drugging and it’s a little worrying that’s what immediately came to mind Yorpy. The cashier appears to be high as a kite and there’s pink dust where Sciona held her.
That is a reflection of me keeping up with global news. The USA in particular has had a number of scandals about college students raping other drunk students. Roofies and other drugs use (for instance by spiking drinks) is likewise associated with such, for those who escalate from taking advantage of an opportunity that presents itself (say coming across someone who has drunk themselves unconscious) to actively creating such situations (either of which is still rape).
None of which is helped by the typical media portrayal of American college culture. Just last week I watched ‘Booksmart’ at the cinema. In which the heroes were individuals who actively avoided school party culture, and had thereby ostracised themselves from the ‘mainstream culture’. In that particular movie the party goes were shown to be just as successful as the oddball students who had devoted themselves to just studying and avoiding fun.
Not having gone to school in America I cannot comment on how much this may or may not reflect actual culture. And I am sure that Hollywood is painting with a pretty broad brush even if it is accurate.
But it does help to explain why such springs to mind when a comment like yours is made. That is how US college parties are portrayed and it is backed up by alarmingly high numbers of criminal trials and other scandals.
I have gone to college in America and can comment on how much it may or may not reflect actual culture. As with anything else from Hollywood, you shouldn’t believe everything you see in movies. Or in the news lately for that matter.
While, yes, college parties do happen fairly often and yes, there are college kids who are out getting drunk every weekend, by and large most college kids are there to learn. There does tend to be more alcohol in colleges than elsewhere in American society, but not to an extreme degree. Basically, it’s just kids getting away from their parents’ control for the first time at the same time that they’re able to buy alcohol for the first time. Some of them – okay, a lot – go a little crazy, but it doesn’t take long for them to settle down.
And as for the “alarmingly high numbers of criminal trials and other scandals”….Well, if you listen to the news you’d think that walking down the street in an American city is like asking to get shot, when in fact even in our most dangerous cities you’re extremely unlikely to be shot at. It’s the same thing with the whole sexual assault on college campuses thing. The problem is undeniably there, but it’s nothing like as bad as the news would have you believe.
Your personal experiences duly noted, with thanks for sharing.
On the other paw, please note:
“11.2% of all students experience rape or sexual assault through physical force, violence, or incapacitation (among all graduate and undergraduate students).”
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/campus-sexual-violence
(although that page has other thought provoking details too)
“In 2013, more than 14,700 students between the ages of 18 and 24 were victims of alcohol-related sexual assault in the U.S”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campus_sexual_assault
I too have safely managed to walk down US streets during several months I lived there. I even managed to go to the cinema without being caught up in a massacre.
Although the very cinema I went to did have one a few years later. Which had me concerned about friends who still frequented it regularly.
I am much happier going to a cinema where there is no concern about that. And no need to make a decision about whether to carry a self defence gun or not.
But I have no wish to provoke a right to bear arms debate. I am just stating my personal preferences. If I were to marry an American, I would prefer we lived in the UK and raised our pups there. i would not want mine to face an 11% chance of being raped during their further education.
It’s worth noting that for some reason “they were both drunk and made some bad decisions” gets treated the same as “she was too drunk to do anything about it and he took advantage”. So that 11% you’re citing includes quite a lot of situations that no sane person* would consider sexual assault. I also would prefer that my daughter avoid both of those situations, but they’re hardly equivalent.
*For anyone inclined to argue the point, I stand by the statement that no sane person would consider a couple drunks hooking up and regretting it in the morning to be sexual assault and refuse to argue with lunatics.
Typically twelve sane people are tasked with deciding whether that individual raped or sexually assaulted someone who was incapable of providing consent.
If you are unable to drink in moderation then don’t use your loss of control on the alcohol, it was your decision to become intoxicated and every action which you commit is still your moral responsibility. If your partner decides that they would have consented and do not wish to press charges, then great, no harm done.
If not then your argument fails, as a rape/sexual assault has been committed. All that remains is proving that to the standard required by law. This is logical ethics, not the ranting of a lunatic. As borne out by convictions by juries who have been instructed on how this legally works too.
Note that if both partners were willingly engaging in sex, even when intoxicated, then I am not disagreeing with you. But if one is insensible then I stand by my assertions.
In fairness, the guy seldom regrets it.
Generally state laws are written so that voluntary intoxication doesn’t matter until someone is actually incapacitated. Two incapacitated people can’t have sex. They’re incapacitated! The idea that two people get drunk and then they both consent to have sex and suddenly its rape isn’t a thing in law.
P.S. Some colleges are totally incapable of handling sexual assault and make zany conclusions that don’t have any basis in fact.
First she regrets it, then he regrets it…
A little googling suggests that the rape statistics in the UK are similar. :-(
Sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s no better in the UK. A 2010 survey found that 16% of female university students had experienced some type of sexual assault with 7% experiencing serious sexual assault.
From https://www.nus.org.uk/Global/NUS_hidden_marks_report_2nd_edition_web.pdf (pdf)
Not sure that the US and UK definitions like up exactly, but they are probably close enough that comparisons are still valid.
Typically they do not, when you examine them in detail. I have done so in the past on debates about crime levels, and the criteria are often very different.
However in this case it is irrelevant, as the topic arose from a question about why date rape would spring to mind. US pop culture promotes the party image heavily, along with the darker sides that come with it. Hence it coming to mind readily, especially with court cases showing that it is not outright fiction.
The sexual assault/rape figures may or may not be comparable. If they are I concede that point, if they aren’t bourne out in detailed analysis then it stands. I can’t be bothered to invest even minimal time in debunking it either way though, as the risk of death from gun crime is enough on its own to resolve where I wish to live.
Rape risks though I can do my little bit to help reduce, by combatting arguments that it is all innocent fun, whenever such is raised. And this forum reaches both sides of the Atlantic, and beyond. So hopefully it might influence impressionable minds towards more moral behaviour.
Gotta go with the others here, Yorp. Your thought about gun violence and other fatal problems is spot on, but most societies have a significant sexual assault issue. It’s worse in some places, but I don’t think that the US is that much worse than most of Europe … probably better than some parts of it.
Isn’t Japan anomalously low, guys? Or do I have that wrong?
There are always reporting issues, though.
For example, one of my wife’s friends was raised Mormon. When she was a tween/early-teen, she was repeatedly raped by her older brother. Her parents and church elders shamed her for leading him on and other disgusting accusations. Obviously, nothing was ever reported to the police or any other secular authority.
Mormons in particular like to put a nice, happy face on everything, no matter how broken things are, under the surface. Her family couldn’t understand why she was upset that they brought her brother/rapist to her 4 year-old’s funeral and demanded that she let him stay. It was not a good time, on top of the tragic circumstances that brought them all together.
Yorp – The methodological problems with those studies are legion. In some cases, they polled students with specific language, which the students answered, saying they were NOT raped or assaulted, and then the researchers redefined the answers to other questions as if the respondents had answered the other way. In addition, you should note the number of cases where false accusations have been proven… and where so-called therapists have been allowed to act as prosecutors of accused students (a violation of ethical codes against dual relationships) and accused students have been deprived of their rights to present a defense, cross examine alleged witnesses, and so on. Allegations years after graduation have been used to deprive students of earned degrees.
So, it’s a real mixed bag out there.
Very glad I’m not twenty-something any more.
I’m rather curious to see how rape statistics are affected when compared with legality of prostitution (as much of it is compared with issues of suppressed sexual tension), and how violent rape statistics are affected when compared with the historic legality of dualing (since violent rape is compared with issues of feelings of powerlessness.)
And counter that with the huge instance of people who do get raped or sexually assaulted yet who choose not to report it then or later.
Bad methodology does need to be countered, as well as instances of abuses of due process. However such exist on both sides of the equation. And the fact that educational institutions work to hush up anything which may lead to a scandal does tend to make me weigh my mental impressions more towards the higher estimates than the lower ones.
As for the other specific you raised (and just going by what you said, rather than investigating it myself) I can see good justification for it. Students (even supposedly well educated ones) may:
1) be unaware of what would actually constitute rape in a date environment
2) be in denial that their personal circumstances would match the definition (even if they correctly know it)
3) may not have thought it through enough for their first response to be reliable.
The latter point I say from personal experience. I often get polled by some reputable institutions who I choose to permit such. Occasionally they will ask an opening question which I will answer one way. Then they will ask a series of related questions which gradually get me to rethink what I originally stated. So that, by the end of the process, when they ask the question ‘have you changed your mind’, I may well do so.
So if the opening question was “have you ever been date raped?” and the reply was “no”, but the response to a later question of “have you ever had sex whilst unconscious, with someone you would not have given consent to?” was “yes” then it would be entirely appropriate to record that person as having been raped/sexually assaulted. They may not consider the label to apply to them, but their own testimony has shown otherwise.
The problem with that 11.2% figure is that there are reasons why that figure may be inflated, and there are other reasons why that figure may actually be a gross underestimation. It seems like the percentage of college students experiencing some form of sexual assault varies wildly depending upon the political motivations of the people doing the analysis.
The number may be underreported because sometimes victims do not come forward to report the assault. The number may be inflated because there are documented cases of women giving consent, changing their minds after the act, and then accusing the man of rape. It is also true that some women simply will lie about these things. I couldn’t tell you which of these factors weighs the heaviest on the reported numbers, and I don’t think anyone else can as well.
Ultimately the only acceptable rate of sexual assault is 0.0%, but unfortunately that figure will never be reached because some people are just evil assholes who don’t give a rip about the harm their actions cause others.
No Guns, Knife Crime is rampant in the UK.
It doesn’t matter how much rape is actually happening on college parties. The note about her being invited is DEFINITELY talking about how people on those parties would like to get high. If it was about rape, Dave would specify it would be BOYS inviting her. If it was about initiations, it wouldn’t be ALL parties.
(Also, putting aside that Sciona is unlikely to visit ANY college party, calling another girl specifically to drug girls you want to rape doesn’t sound like good idea.)
Dilated pupils means stimulant. Apparently Escorpia can transmit cocaine through touch.
‘Is something associated with’. Dilated pupils can occur from other things too:
Medications.
Eye injury.
Brain injury or disease.
Benign episodic unilateral mydriasis.
Adie’s pupil.
Congenital aniridia.
Sexual attraction.
The last being of particular note for this comic. None of which need actually be the cause. Yours is a good argument, however is not the only conclusion.
That’s what I always check for, when my toddler lands on his head … again.
“Okay, no concussion this time. Keep batting 1.000, kid.”
I wonder if Scionia’s newfound ability is akin to autoerotic asphyxiation, just without the auto part.
That was ^my^ first thought!
well she leaves a pink residue on her victims,Other Drugs known for being pink include but are not limited to
U-47700 (AKA Pink Pinky U4 https://www.drugs.com/illicit/u-47700.html
Morte Rosa (questionable source, may have been purely fictional) a Meth-Cocaine-(&?Caffeine) mix supposedly from South America.
Note it Still possible that her touch contains Scorpion venom. just listing some other posibilitys
Occam’s Razor. Escorpia was, in life, in some way involved with a drug cartel (remember she had the scorpion tattoo before Sciona possessed her), which means she was in the cocaine business. What better way to both disguise her ability and make money off of it than to get people higher off the product she was selling without having to cut it any less? It would also make sense that that was why the cartel was killing her; they saw her moving better product than they were supplying her and thought she was somehow going through multiple suppliers or had found a better way to cut the product and wanted more money.
No, Rico (not the cartel bosses) killed Escorpia because she stole money from him, and then laughed at his puny attempts to beat the location out of her, his teeny shrivelled cocaine-dick couldn’t handle being laughed at, so he shot her
The best thing that happened to him was Sci-fright moving in, because the bosses wouldn’t like him losing their money, or their favourite pusher
Man, wait until Snowflame hears about her.
Il take Obscure 80s comic book villains for 1000 alex….
Snowflame had at least two separate appearances… he’s not worth more than $500 in normal Jeopardy (unless you’re also requiring who wrote those comics).
Why didn’t it work when she grabbed Rico? Maybe it’s female-specific?
He got possessed by an Alari, which would reasonably have interfered with such a process.
No, he got possessed after Sciorpia grabbed him and ventilated his head
Best guess is that it needs to be activated and Sciona has activated it by mistake here.
Alternatively she didn’t let him live long enough to notice the effect OR it build up on her hands over time but got wiped off on her top when she hefted her breasts.
Maybe it’s a boob-sweat specific power, like the genetically engineered female leader Peacekeeper in Farscape. Her breasts produced aphrodisiac sweat, but you had to be close to it for a short while, or she ran her finger over it and touched you for it to work.
They had some very interesting ideas in Farscape. Also I liked that they had some non-humanoid aliens.
God I loved that show. A sci-fi show that didn’t always look like it was shot in Canadian forests. No offense to Stargate but….seriously.
Considering it was shot in New Zealand (or Australia; can’t quite remember), making it look like coniferous forest would be kinda difficult…
Australia, with a large Kiwi crew and side-cast
Which does not counter my proposal in the least. Her changed behaviour took several panels to take effect. Had she been shot in the head before it was completed then she would be dead and the super power would not be able to do its thing.
Or possibly Sciona could actually control mind or emotions, if the effect lingers in the body after death. His (unseen) possession could have mirrored the look in the above page.
On another note, although it is most likely Sciona’s arm grabbing the shopkeeper (it logically follows from her sighing in the previous panel and deciding on another option) it could be the shopkeepers own hand, grasping her neck in alarm.
In which case triggering the power would require some other mechanism. Such as the super (Sciona) deciding she wants the target to do something (in this case maybe being the desire to “speak English” – which the shopkeeper may not know, hence being controlled but just drooling as unable to comply with the order).
But, interestingly this option works regardless of whether that is Sciona’s arm or the shopkeepers, as it is Sciona’s mental state triggering the effect, rather than the grasping. Hence also answering the original question of why the guy was not affected. Sciona just wanted to kill him (so he could be possessed), rather than get him to do something himself.
This is not a Sci-bility, she is looking surprised at her new hand in the last panel, and if it was an ability she always had, she wouldn’t find it ‘interesting’
A more likely ‘handwavian’ reason why Rico didn’t get affected, is maybe it has to be the right hand doing the grasping
It wouldn’t be the Shop Girls’ hand, as why would she be choking herself? Question is: was Sciorpia attempting to choke her out? Or just grabbing her by the throat to get her to listen and Sci was about start talking without the annoyance of EssGee interrupting in Spanish forcing Sci to look up what she is prattling on about
One thing we know about Dear Sci, is she doesn’t have much in the way of patience
Of course it is a new power coming from the body Sciona has taken over. However it has to be activated by some means, which is what I was speculating about.
My Yorpie Snax® are on her hands passing on the effect toxin like, as proposed by Wyld-One, below. Possibly it may only be present on one hand, as you say. But killing someone would still plausibly break the process.
Please note that I said “grasping her own neck in alarm”, not “choking herself”.
Except, the -:HURK:- and ‘GKKKK…’ imply choking out with the ‘KRKKUUUUUUH…’ and eye-dilation is when the hypno-effect kicks in
Yes and if she had been shot in the head before that? You fail to follow even the simplest logic chain at times.
Which is weird, given that at other times, you can rapidly intuit a sound deduction. Do you just choose to make weak counter arguments for the LOLs, or is it that you fail to take a moment to think things through, to see what someone else is getting at?
eh, Guest’s always been like that.
Pesticus has been practically banned from at least one comic I know of for this behaviour.
The dust as you can see is on her neck, meaning that it was delivered to the main bloodvessel leading to the brain, so the effect would be a lot quicker to kick in, that if she’d grabbed a arm or leg, like she did with Rico. Which Sciona didn’t let live long enough for any effect to kick in.
Also this might be the reason why she’s called Escorpia.
Scorpion venom is one of the deadliest toxin used for the purpose to get high. The high lasts for 10 hours. First few hours are more painful then slowly the pain is vanished and everything appears like it is dancing (Hallucinations and delusions)
Scorpion venom is harmful to human brain when inhaled. It cause memory loss (both short term and long term),
Scorpion venom is a neurotoxin that attacks the nervous system and get you high (Hallucinations) it is not fully investigated that how it cause hallucinations (As addiction) because there is limited research available on scorpion addiction and its users cannot be identified as easily.
Same here. I don’t see why we need an explanation for why Rico wasn’t affected by the power. When it’s two seconds from touch to bullet-through-the-brain, we don’t even know what would have happened in another 10 or 15 seconds, if she hadn’t shot him.
On another note, Alyx …
Scorpion addiction …
Humans are so @$#&!¥£ weird. I swear. Heh.
Killed, then possessed, yeah. And I doubt that Sciona has gotten particularly touchy-feely with her subordinates, since patching up their new bodies for them. She doesn’t seem like the hands-on managerial type.
Sorry, that last one got attached to the end of the wrong comment. It was supposed to be on Yorp’s comment below this.
@Narf
Worth noting Sciona is an Alarian racial supremacist, to the point to where she wouldn’t hesitate to kill non-Alari for her own gain in mass, but she also doesn’t hesitate to sacrifice herself for her fellow Alari. She will likely be treating these subordinates much different than the past ones she has interacted with.
You are speculating on something that didn’t happen (EssGee getting shot in the head), also, doubling down on EssGee grasping her own neck in alarm with nothing to back it up, dismissing the six panels backing up Sciorpia being the one choking her
And people like you Alyx is why haven’t gone back to “YAFGC”: attacking readers and calling them names is something have never done (and something you have done several times for no reason)
As for being banned, it was for using Nicknames (when Rich can’t even seem to keep his own characters’ names straight at times), being dismissive of characters (for showing idiotic actions: remember the ‘fight’ between Eddy and Runt? that resulted in Runt taking one of the minotaur-sphinx kids and running off to a Ranna-stronghold, alone?) and for pointing out art errors (the arrow was not long enough for size of the longbow, and all Rich had to do was edit the arrow-head out), Rich can not handle any sort of criticism
@lil Joshua
Alari supremacist … is there another kind? At least the people at the top of the society seem to be, if Dabbler’s reporting of the situation is even close to accurate.
I don’t know that Sciona actually sacrificed herself FOR them. There wasn’t really anything for her left, and she hitched a ride along with those souls in the battery. Strength in numbers, you know? Besides, as a blood mage, she is at the top of the heap, which is backed up by what we’ve seen here. The word “minion” comes to mind.
The “hands-on” and “touchy feely” lines were just a stupid joke. That is too say, we wouldn’t have seen her powers previously, when she touched her subordinates in their possessed bodies, because she hasn’t. Not a hands-on manager. Eh heh.
Yeah, I’m not quitting my day job. I’ve done stand-up, actually, and I actually didn’t bomb … about 10% of the time.
@Narf
Heh.
@Narf
She did sacrifice for them. Maybe not the entirety of her being, but definitely her body that she had worked so hard to get. She was faster with her wings, getting back through the portal would have been easier if she didn’t sacrifice herself. Even Hitler could be compassionate to those he valued. Just because a person is scum-of-the-earth evil doesn’t mean they don’t have their own values they see worth fighting for; otherwise they’d just all be sociopaths, which gets monotonous quick.
Escorpia and the shopkeeper wear different colors of nail polish. That’s definitely not the shopkeeper’s hand.
Was trying to find some visible difference between the two hands, hadn’t spotted EssGee’s nails in the first panel :(
Although it does look like Sciona’s hand is depositing a chemical or other visible effect. In which case I will fall back to the guy having been killed/possessed and the shopkeeper not.
As a follow up to my other reply this would be especially appropriate if the possession process requires a fresh corpse. Death is quite a plausible inhibitor of mind/emotion control.
So sciona/scorpia has a ‘sting’ now with touch based neurotoxin?
Yeah, was thinking that was probably what inspired her ‘Super name’ (doubt her parents would have named her that)
Supervillain parents would definitely name their daughter something like “Scorpia” and also give her the powers to match her name.
If her powers manifested at birth
The only natural super we have had the background to, has been Daphne, and she first manifested her power at around 9 or 10, don’t recall Vahriah ever saying when her gestalt started
Or if they intended to give her the powers later. Or if they renamed her later.
Or, she simply chose that name herself, after running away from home after her powers first manifested and joining (willingly or not) a street gang (or heck, maybe even before then, plenty of runaway kids all over the world), kinda like Mr Amorphous, and Heatwave, and Anvil, and… (choosing their own Super names, not the running away bit)
*nods*
And it could be triggered faster because she grabbed her neck.
With the goon the toxin / drug would have taken some more time, because the blood would have to get from his arm to his brain first – and she shot him before he could even beg some more.
My guess is that the drug is oozing from her skin, which is why she is looking at a ‘kind of slimy’ hand.
Also it looks like her released neck has escorpiona’s glitter glue.
And it could be triggered faster because she grabbed her neck (explaining this as it came up somewhere above).
With the goon the toxin / drug would have taken some more time, because the blood would have to get from his arm to his brain first – and she shot him before he could even beg some more.
My guess is that the drug is oozing from her skin, which is why she is looking at a ‘kind of slimy’ hand.
Also it looks like her released neck has escorpiona’s glitter glue.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a neuroTOXIN. It could be any sort of effect that she causes by striking out and hitting them. Superhero names are sometimes only loosely connected to their powers, with all sorts of variations.
Hell, she could have many effects that she can cause. Sciona clearly has no idea how to control Escorpia’s powers, so we might have ended up with a random draw. Maybe Escorpia will surface and show her what else she can do.
I’m pretty sure that almost all supers’ abilities surface around puberty. I vaguely recall a discussion about that, sometime in the first couple hundred pages.
Sydney, mentioned, that it could not have, because genetics do not work that way and she is correct.. PS. I posted the Escorpia = The Scorpion, in the first page of comments.
Hmm, neat effect in panel one: makes it look like the shop clerk has a hand growing out of the back of her hand :)
(don’t you dare ‘fix’ that!!)
This is the only time we see the shopkeeper’s left hand.
There are no blur lines to indicate motion.
If Escorpia was a pre existing super of the Grrl Power Universe,
wouldn’t she be taller?
Unless she’s technically not a super, but a psychic vampire or so.
Why would she be taller? Harem isn’t six-feet tall
She is above female average though, at 5′ 8″, and we have been told that supers do tend to be taller. I think Peggy mentioned that in comic, although Dave has commented on it too.
Personally I am content in my interpretation that normal heroes* have a culturally idealised female form. Hence Americans having tall blonde busty heroines. Whereas if we get to see Japanese ones many may have distinctly manga looks (with many being busty, but with a fair number of exceptions).
Height might not be a good indicator for Japanese heroes though. Although historically Japanse have been smaller, their whole population is got taller as their diets changed. Unless, of course, it turns out that reflects Japan having a heck of a lot more supers than other nations get. All that radiation maybe …
* Halo, Pixel and Krona having different origins, which break the mould.
Well, we don’t know about Kronachrome, and Pixel is a super only in kitty-form
The red-haired Japanese from the far north have long tended to be tall, so claiming all Japanese have always been on short side is… kinda mis-informed
I am indeed unfamiliar with that, but find it interesting. Do you have a source you can reference?
That aside, please mentally insert appropriate politically correct caveats in my comment such as “tend to be” and “exceptions exist” and “not wishing to stereotype, but …” along with the yawning that such provokes.
Personally I now have far less time to spare on such waffle, and don’t give a monkey’s if someone wants to kick off about it.
Crap, can’t remember the name an Bing-ing it isn’t producing any results right now
One of the characters in “TMI” is a mute tall girl with red hair who is from Northern Japan
And wasn’t meaning to ‘kick off’ anything
I believe you may be thinking of the Ainu. They’re genetically distinct from the majority of the Japanese population.
Ooh, Japanese history I was unaware of. Thanks both!
That’s the name, thank you, was thinking of ‘Anzu’ for some reason :(
They are still Japanese, and was just pointing out that there are exceptions
Barbi, named after the doll, often mispronounced in japan to unfortunate effect. She introduces herself here. The height reference is here.
It’s a good guess, though I have an alternative theory – that it’s not that supers look like idealized humans (which would vary from culture to culture), but that the ideal body shape is based on supers.
The modern Western beauty ideal comes mainly from Greco-Roman culture, and the Greeks and Romans were *all about* their demigod heroes right? Maybe in the Grrlverse there happened to be a bunch of supers around that time, and they started idolizing people who resembled them.
We also had that throwaway joke panel about high-level beings “seeding planets so that all aliens look the same”. Maybe supers reflect the form of that ancestral godlike race? Maybe angels and demons are also connected to them and that’s why they seem to mostly have that body shape as well?
Or maybe it’s just the kind of body shape DaveB likes to draw.
Latinos and East Asians tend to be much shorter, though. They’re the people who bring the worldwide average down quite a bit. Average for Caucasian women is about 5’6″. Average for women worldwide is about 5’4″.
So above-average for Escorpia’s end of the human gene pool would be much shorter than for a Caucasian super. Dave commented about how 5’4″ seems a little low, when he looked it up. He was thinking of his experience with white women, as most of we white guys do.
I’d beg to differ. In just the last 300 years Europeans have had major differences in the ideal female body shape and size…. Botticelli to Reuben and so on. As far as male body shape, the vertical proportions are roughly similar across the entire Old World for muscular men… and horizontal ranging from barrel-chested groups like Samoans, through Russians, all the way to sleight builds like certain orientals. The one distinctive difference in vertical proportions in the entire world is the New World south of the US, with short legs and long torso being preferred.
I was told by a Hispanic Mexican American studies professor in the 1980s that those proportions have historically made someone very good at agriculture, which was prized in the Americas all the way back to Maya times. Dr Jimenez was very matter-of-fact when he explained it.
With today’s culture being what it is, I only will repeat the claim, without amplification or comment, in a sentence or paragraph with those disclaimers.
I don’t know why we should think Escorpia is shorter than we would expect a super to be. Consider panel 5 on the last page where she’s almost as tall as “Rico”, the taller of the two thugs. If we assume they are average sized, Escorpia would be of about average male height, which is quite tall for a woman. Currently there’s no evidence she’s shorter than that.
Anyone over 5 foot 4 inches, is tall to me, as I am 5 foot 4 1/2 inches in height.
You might enjoy life in the Pacific, where you could get to be tall.
Or parts of the US.
My wife is just under five feet tall, like my mother was.
Heh, yea. Normally you would expect zip lines to indicate the motion of her hand up and down to try and appease Sciona.
However lets make this thread interesting and propose that the shop assistant is actually growing an extra hand. Which we can infer also happened to the other hand (her right hand) subsequently (as it clearly had not grown in panel 1, but could have been the one visible in any subsequent panel, with the original being out of frame below it).
These extra limbs then attempting to kill her, much like in the Army of Darkness. Perhaps with the attempt breaking off when the splitting off of a new body was completed, and the original body felt relief at the close escape.
Sciona’s borrowed body thereby having a power to spawn evil twins. Look out Maxima and Halo!
Yea, yuppers, that is it. Definitely.
*nods authoritatively and convincingly*
*looking around to see where the original Yorp is*
If it isn’t deliberate, it just looks disturbing.
So, if not deliberate, it should be fixed.
Shop Girl is clearly waving her hand up and down, moving it just at the wrist (as opposed to moving her entire forearm)
Guesticus, apparently, NO ONE caught your mention of the clerks strange left hand in the first panel. I was waiting for some one to comment on it. It appears we are the only 2 who think it is remarkable.
Powers already. Dabbler will be jealous, I think.
Well, we have a bunch of Alari souls in stolen bodies.
Demons can devour souls (which was mentioned in one of Dabbler’s earlier conversations) and here Sciona is providing a smorgasbord that shouldn’t upset the locals to feast from.
I’m thinking hungry rather than jealous.
VOTE EVERYDAY FOR GRRL POWER,MOVE TO FIRST
Is that…forced orgasm power?
Possibly. Dabbler has done something similar.
VOTE FOR GRRL POWER
I am sorry but are you saying we should vote for Grrlpower? You’ve been too subtle for the past week.
;-þ
She’s either tripping or lobotomized. I really hope she’s just tripping.
Check out the sparkly pink glitter: hypno-roofied (for anyone going to complain and bitch about the use of that word: byte me cupcake!)
Wait, is she in a drug empire because her skin literally produces drugs?
That’s what I assumed, given that she was clearly mixed up with a drug cartel. Maybe she can also enhance other drugs? Maybe she helps addicts get off the stuff, like you do with methadone? Maybe she’s simply a drug dealer/distributor, and the writer simply went with a thematic introduction, simply because it fits together with her powers.
Not enough info, yet.
Cheryl/Carol from archer gonna be your biggest fan…
Mental dominance with the touch? Scion is definitely going to want to study that skill
https://m.youtube.com/HiAG-xxOnDw
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HiAG-xxOnDw&feature=youtu.be#
(Better version) Unfortunately this song *always* pops into my head when i hear that phrase
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A52–FKUQgU
Honestly, Escorpia didn’t have a power. The girl’s just into breathplay.
And the sparkly pink glitter that is now all over Sciorpia’s hand is from the rave Shop Girl went to last night? o_O
That’s what I was thinking too until I saw the glittery dust.
You know those LGBTQ sorts and their glitter bombs. Glitter bombing the offices of anti-LGBTQ politicians is definitely one of the more delightful inventions of the last decade or so.
So, can we expect any interesting, glitter-related scenes between Sciona/Escorpia and the shopkeeper, in future pages? And will Math be upset that he missed them?
I’m waiting for the Scarface “Say hello to my little friend” scene with piles of glitter rather than cocaine…
Snorting glitter -as far as your lungs are concerned, coke would be better for you……
OK, so that’s why Rico said her body would be worth more than the money.
Yeah I just assumed he meant proof of her being captured.
Turns out she IS drugs. Dates with her must be quite intoxicating.
So that’s what they meant by selling Escropia’s dead body for a ton of cash, I thought it was a weird sex thing
I thought it was hinting at selling her organs. But them actually meaning to harvest this drug (or whatever it is) from her body or sell her to some evil scientist studying supers makes a lot of sense now too.
Cut-scene to SmugD reading a letter and going: “Damn, her body would have been interesting to study, for douche-science! Oh well, plenty of other supers to study, dead or alive.”
Cutscene to SmugD looking from his letter to his bookshelf..
‘I have.. hmm, now that they are combined, does this count as updating two entries or one?’
Unless he is into necrophilia, he won’t be updating anything
He had a draugr in the book. Thous are basically norse zombies.
Butt not actually a corpse, which Escorpia was before Sci hopped in
Psh, lifeist. At worst, this new synthesis is undead (we don’t know if she has a pulse or not.. yet, at least). And I am sure, for completenesses sake if naught else SmugD has at least one vampire in his library.
You saw the lady vampires at the Council meeting; don’t tell me he would draw a line short of them.
Though I was originally implying that, Deus being Deus, there was a probability he had engaged in happy fun time with Escorpia while she was still purely Escorpia.
Difference between the Vampettes and Escorpia pre-Sciorpia: the Vampettes are conscious and not dead-dead
Was specially referring to dead-Escorpia, not unknown-Sciorpia
Either way, it’s probably classified as undead.
*nods*
A clever writing concealment.
I thought it was simply that the drug lord to whom they owed the money would be at least somewhat appeased by Escorpia’s death.
Seriously though, did anyone here not think that she was a super, from panel one of her introduction? I took it for granted, right away.
How can you not be a super villain with a name like Escorpia?
By being a simple gang-thug
+1
Well, she ended up in captivity to those two idiots. I don’t think that a drug queenpin would be in the sort of situation that was described during the interrogation and in the conversation between the two guys after they shot her.
Not every super has to be at the top of a power structure. I’m sure that some are just dumb muscle, and others are loners.
Is the ‘super’ effect exclusive to humans, or is it how humans manifest magic?
We have seen Zephan Zoeng spellcasting (in the Battle at the Steakhouse Carpark ®). The imagery associated with that was much like what we see when Dabbler spell casts. Namely glowing circular images hovering in the air, with arcane symbols inside (along with other effects). So no, human spellcasting does not manifest like we see above.
Supers are prominent on Earth, for reasons unknown. We know that their increasing numbers have been causing problems with the Veil, as the Twilight Council lack the ability to easily program it to conceal their activities. Centuries worth of studying them have failed to crack whatever commonality there may be between super powers or why they are so (relatively) common on Earth.
The supernatural’s extraordinary powers (such as being able to fly) do not stem from super powers. Either they are inherent properties of their race, technological devices, spells, psionic powers or other stuff we may not even have a name for. Although there may be individuals from the galactic community (or even whole races) who do have super powers I do not believe we have seen an example yet.
Dabbler gets her various powers from those non-super powers I listed above (all of them). So whilst she hangs with supers she is technically not one (at least not the typical variety that makes up most of Archon’s supers). Other exceptions include Math (highly skilled), Zephan and Gwen (spellcasters/magic item users), Pixel and Halo.
Maybe the reason for supers is mellinia of alien sex tourism.
True. Even though aliens are not intrinsically supers. humans may have something about them that promotes super mutations in their joint offspring.
Mind you the prevalence of supers on Earth may also explain the alien sex tourism. Perhaps they have been trying to crossbreed super powers into their respective races?
Or superpower STD like in Empowered.
Pixel is an odd case, as Krona mentioned on page 494. She’s a super, but only in her hybrid and animal forms. So, in her hybrid form, she exhibits the ‘idealized’ muscle definition and body type typical of supers. Not the hairless below the neck aspect, though (remembering Sydney’s “merkin bald cap” reaction to realizing none of the supers ever needed to shave their legs or . . . other places). Apparently either lycanthrope > super for hair purposes, or fur =/= hair for super purposes.
The crossbreeding idea is interesting. It’s been done in the genre in a number of ways, and offers some interesting possibilities.
In Marvel comics, the Kree Supreme Intelligence had tried that as a way to get around the Kree’s genetic stagnation (can’t evolve or mutate, been that way ~one million years). That resulted in the ‘pink’ Kree, who are discriminated against by the ‘pure-blooded’ blue Kree. He (It? They?) also tried engineering the Inhuman species from proto-humans, bonding Captain Mar-Vell with a human with tremendous latent psychic potential (Rick Jones), etc. Nothing worked, but dude (dudes?) just keeps on trying.
In DC, Maxima keeps trying to offer Superman a “Super Friends with benefits” arrangement as an alternative to the “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” dilemma, but the heart wants what the heart wants. Since she also goes after some high-tier Earth-born supers as potential mates, I guess that would count as alien sex tourism.
We’ve seen Zephan’s spellcasting, and Gwen’s, and some from Dabbler, all of which involved glowing floaty sigils. But we don’t know for sure that their style of magic is the only one accessible to Humans, let alone to other Peoples. The sigils may simply be the signature of one particular school of magic, while others exist with different signatures; one could compare the D&D magic-user classes of Wizard (knowledge is power, mind over matter), Warlock (a powerful patron/friend on the other side), and Sorcerer (born not made, instinctive ease over learned intricacy), for instance.
You forgot the tag on the sunglasses in the last panel =)
Otherwise, I like where this is going! Though I wonder, is Sciona going to continue to be a main antagonist, or will we move on to something else, simply with the knowledge that Sciona is inhabiting a super-body and taking over a Mexican city way in the background?
It would explain the war-like levels of murder Mexico has seen in recent years. We attribute it to drug cartel infighting and other criminal activities. Whereas it is just Sciona being in residence and doing her usual thing, but on a grand scale.
Which, if she is trying to resuscitate an entire world worth of Alari, would indeed require an awful lot of fresh corpses to possess.
Accounts for desaparecidos, but not murders.
Had to look that word up
Alec, is that you? Great videos mate, I’m one of your subscribers.
Still asking YouTube to allow me to do ‘dew claw up’ on them, it feels weird clicking on a ‘thumbs up’ symbol!
Kinky.
If Alari can kill supers, then possess their bodies and retain their powers….
….this could be extremely dangerous.
Yes.
Especially if they still have Halo’s original corpse lying around. Clearly Sciona never did figure out how to bind the original orbs (the ones which were replicated by Krona’s checkpoint) to herself. But they may have retained their loyalty to Sydney even post mortem.
Krona’s checkpoint didn’t create new things, it returned things to their previous locations and reanimated Pixel. Sydney wouldn’t have been completely dead yet because the brain doesn’t die instantly from being shanked in the torso.
It appears to do as you say. However what evidence is there that it did not just recreate Pixel (and Sydney) at the checkpoint locations?
Both were at the mercy of Sciona and her minions, whilst dead or incapacitated. Who fled the scene with whatever they chose to take with them. And Sciona had expressed an interest in acquiring control of Halo’s orbs. Not to mention she had actively been harvesting Pixel’s blood. As both a were creature and a super she was a valuable resource to Sciona, so it is reasonable to propose that she would have secured Pixel’s unconscious body.
Bear in mind that we actually have a character who does this in this comic. Harem created her extra bodies by ‘teleporting’ to a new location and failing to delete the one at her previous location. Although she can do the latter whenever she does a regular teleport.
Had Halo’s and Pixel’s bodies remained, then even if the reset erased Sciona’s memory the presence of two unexplained bodies would have prompted Sciona to investigate immediately.
No investigation until Team Lilliput was reporting in pretty much means Sciona was unaware of their presence, and that wouldn’t have been the case had two duplicate bodies been down in the warehouse.
I’m pretty sure that their bodies were reset, when Krona’s time bubble popped. No bodies left behind, since the only bodies they had were reset to the previous state … which is to say back inside of Krona’s bubble.
The reason that Sciona remembered and sent her robot was because her memory wasn’t wiped, having been outside of Krona’s bubble.
It’s unclear exactly how long it would have taken Sciona to go from the point in time of the reset to investigating. It’s possible that the reset didn’t affect Sciona at all. But the two prisoners she had just disappeared. This prompted her to go and fix the robot she had, power it on, and send it out. That toook a bit, because it wasn’t just idling on standby.
After she sent that out, she went to scurry off somewhere else.
Sydney’s was right in front of Sciona. Literally in her grasp. Even if her memory had been reset* Sciona would have been curious as to how she was suddenly holding a dead cop in her hands. Seeing her syringe stuck into Halo would give her quite a good clue to start figuring it out. And likewise prompt her into looking for other cops.
Whilst bearing in mind that Sciona had no trouble in detecting Pixel previously, even when she was fully invisible and in stealth mode! Given that she ended up stripped naked and being drained of blood in Sciona’s basement. So finding her whilst unconscious, visible and bleeding out a big pool of blood (remember Sciona is a blood mage) would have been a trivial matter for her to accomplish.
But it is also worth noting that your counter-argument does have something which supports mine. If we take it that Sciona was outside of Krona’s “time bubble”, and thereby did not have her memory affected, then Sydney, who was in Sciona’s grasp, was also outside of the effect! So her corpse would not have been deleted, when Sydney II was created.
Having found two such valuable resources (Sydney I & Pixel I) it is very unlikely that Sciona would choose to leave them behind when she ordered the evacuation.
I do though conceded that Pixel may have been within the “time bubble”, so could have had her original body deleted when the reset occurred. Especially as this does not require any “searching for Pixel” step in my justification. Thus making it more plausible (using Occam’s Razor).
* Which is not what I am stating. Sciona was not at the original checkpoint, hence she would not necessarily have been altered. The very fact that Sciona and her minions did not repeat their previous actions is actually quite a strong indicator that she retained her original memories and thereby realised that flight was imperative.
Pixelicious entered the Warhouse naked (she took her clothes off before entering full-kitty mode
Pixelicious was not unconscious and bleeding out a big pool of blood, she was conscious and already healing (with Harem right beside her)
Conceded. I had recalled previous debates where we concluded that Sciona could have ended up with Pixel’s powers. But had forgotten that it was because she still had access to her blood (from the previous draining), rather than her person.
A key point though is that this is still true, due to the nature of Krona’s power. As it did not reset time, but did do the matter rearranging mentioned earlier in the thread, Pixel’s body will have been changed (along with Harem’s) as they were both close to the checkpoint effect (Pixel having just been knocked off the building in question, but it was not a very tall one).
However her previously sampled blood was in the underground part of the complex under the building on the opposite side of the road, next to where Sydney was (probably) killed. As such that blood sample will have been unchanged, alongside Sciona and Halo. So Sciona could use it to enhance her blood magic, as well as the syringe full of Halo’s blood. Plus would be able to use Halo’s body (and possibly her orbs) via Alari possession.
Also, the response team pulled the other
donorsvictims out of the warehouse, so some spare bodies of team members would’ve definitely been noticed.Time was reset, and reverted, to before the entrance existed.
Again, speculating on no evidence: the only minions we know at the Warhouse was that Elder Vamp, and he fled as a bunch of gossipy bats
As for Sci taken the bodies herself: that would require carefully unhooking Pixelicious first (and why? she would have to know that she was a were-Super and not just a were), and if she had taken Sydney’s supposed corpse, don’t you think, even for a little, that she would have freaked out finding Sydney to be alive and well?
I hope the clerk isn’t dead….or is she!?
… Does she look dead? o_O
No “X”s instead of eyes, so no.
Heh. Scorpiona.
Newter? Is that you? What are you doing in Grrl Power?
“Escorpia” equals The Scorpion. That explains the scorpion tattoo.
And her Super power explains why she chose that name
Didn’t mean that kind of drugging and it’s a little worrying that’s what immediately came to mind Yorpy. The cashier appears to be high as a kite and there’s pink dust where Sciona held her.
Not going to lie: the Arsenal stuff sounds interesting. Unfortunately, it’s only available for Kindle, which I don’t have. I’ve looked at the Google Play store and the iTunes Store, and neither of them have it. And a Google search brings up Amazon, where it indicates that any purchase is for use with a Kindle.
Kindle has an app.
There are Kindle apps for Android and iOS, no physical Kindle required. Just look it up in the relevant app store.
It’s Orgazmo!!
*from somewhere in the background* …and Choda-boy!
Had been wondering if she had been a super, given their belief that her body would be worth enough to cover any losses to whichever cartel they were a part of.
His wearing a glove to punch her with makes more sense now, too. Didn’t strike me as the kind of guy to worry about fingerprints on a murder weapon.
And sure that Sciona, who has a history of weaponizing body fluids, won’t do ANYthing with this newfound substance.. ayup.
“Had been wondering if she had been a super, given their belief that her body would be worth enough to cover any losses to whichever cartel they were a part of.”
Oh hey, that’s a good catch! I’d already forgotten about that. Makes sense!
Recall “the Goose that Laid Golden Eggs”. The dead goose didn’t have any gold in it. And somebody would remember that story. They would want her body since they want to make sure, but they would want her in good health. No reason to take the risk. “Rumplestilskin” tells how a crack producer might be treated. Set her in an escape proof room and promise her just about everything, just as long as there is a sack of good stuff here in the morning. If there is not, the cartel would be “disappointed”, and …
Yeah, was thinking the similar thoughts: Escorpia alive would be valuable, dead, not so much
Given that the comic really runs on the “Most Common Superpower” trope, maybe we should have been more observant and not been surprised that Escorpia is one.
Yeah, logically if all supers have amazing physiques it doesn’t mean all people with amazing physiques are supers- but at this point chances are pretty good they’re metahuman.
Heh.
I wonder if we will come across any ugly supers? Even they are not (automatically) immune to disfigurement by acid, fire or other scars.
Not that Sciona has always been that perdy, except maybe to orcophiles,* but (at that time) she was not a super.
* OMG, google recognised that as a valid word, with no wiggly red line underneath it. Our world is getting stranger.
Theres that one that can kill with a glance that both Sciona and Deus have worked with. She claimed to look hideous. And she is a super.
I seem to recall she specifically asserted she wasn’t a super, but didn’t really know what she was. That having been said, it’s possible she only thinks she’s not a super because all supers are amazingly good looking and she isn’t.
My guess is that she’s mistaken, and she’s actually a super who’s literally heart-stoppingly beautiful. She can stand looking into a mirror, however, because like most people, she’s much better at spotting her imperfections than anybody else’s, and like many beautiful people, she’s so focused on those imperfections that she’s deluded into thinking that they mar her appearance to such an extent the word hideous is appropriate.
I took her to be a basilisk/medusa or the offspring of such. We know that the Twilight Council field army units of such, indicating that they are a race (as the council do not have supers, and we have not seen groups of supers with identical powers). So her powers could be magical in origin or simply the properties of a creature which naturally evolved in a very different environment to Earth. Who can kill just by a look, through some normal laws of physics which we may simply be ignorant of. As opposed to super powers which just ignore the rule book.
Seems odd that a basilisk would be on Deus’s payroll when the rest of his group seemed to either be specially trained humans or supers (except for Vale who’s… whatever she is).
But I checked the relevant pages and she never said she was not a super. Although i think Some Ed’s idea is a possibility. She could be so beautiful it causes a heart attack, although she did call herself hideously ugly. Looking forward to eventually finding out more about her.
The Eventual Eviscerator.
Sciona seems a bit short on patience for someone who intends to lead an army. I mean….”I can’t understand you but you’re clearly scared of me. Oh, whatever, I’ll just throttle you.” What kind of thought process is that? Someone should get her a copy of the Evil Overlord List.
Or, she could be throttling EssGee to get her to shut up and listen, when someone keeps interrupting you in a language you don’t know, forcing you first look up what they said, then look up a reply, one would tend to start getting testy, specially if they are in a public place and don’t want to hang around longer than they would like
Butt yes, Sci is not big on patience
Haven’t checked the evil overlord list in years, but I am pretty sure one item was that killing underlings can be fun, but should be done only in special cases. Of course some of the others mentioned some of those specials cases, one being that if the hero says “Before you shoot me, can you tell me..?” the answer is shooting him, and then saying “no”.
I wonder if Scorpiona’s touch is addictive? An army of drug addled zombies would be right up Sciona’s alley.
Based on the first hundred or so comments, this may have been wishful thinking
Naa, the figuring out process is a debating process. In due course a consensus normally gets reached. Sometimes there will be debate about the specifics mind. And there will always be some who have oddball ideas which have little logical link to what was portrayed.
In this case Guesticus very likely called it right with the very first comment: “Ooo, Escorpia was a Super?” ” Precisely how her power works, and what it does, is still open for interpretation mind, but that is part of the fun of not having all the information spoon fed to us.
Of course Guesticus might be wrong, as there are some dissenting points of views. But I doubt they will turn out to have it right. There are enough clues pointing that way, in conjunction with similar things Dave has introduced in the past (such as Pixel being a normal person whenever she is not in her lycanthrope form, that I have a high degree of confidence.
I know this is comic book violence and all, but it is hitting my limit of comfort where I will drop watching a strip, even one I have followed for a long time and have enjoyed. I am hoping you will dial things back a bit so I can continue to on this ride.
How did you make it through the restaurant fight, and subsequent battle with Vehemence, if this is too much?
I’m getting a Wild Cards Cocomama vibe from Sciona’s new ride here :D
Oh, and seconding the Wraith recommendation. Looking forward to seeing where it goes!
She has the pleasing touch? I would just figure that this girl just gets off on it. If Sciona possessed a powered corpse that would be a bit silly.
Sciona seems to have a visiblel touch, yeah?
She reaches in, and grabs right hold of your neck.
She seems to have a visible touch, yeah.
She takes control, and soon your life’s a wreck.
Well, I don’t really know her. I only know her name
But she crawls into your skin, you’re never quite the same. And now I know,
She’s got something that she can trust.
It’s something mysterious.
…
Reminds me of Stan the Water Man’s attempt at Spanish: “Mi nombre es…Stan!”
I see that Alari souls/spirits don’t have to follow the Harry Potter rule of floating around for a decade before inhabiting a new body. The book series would have been a lot different if Voldy had come back a month after Harry’s parents were knocked off. “Harry Potter and the Sippy Cup of Fire”.
is that why the guy punching her a few pages back only had a glove on the hand he physically punched her with? hmm
Makes sense. Dave does put in logical details like that throughout the comic.
Hope he explained to any body-baggers to wear protective clothing, unless it’s supposed to stop working once she is dead (certainly explains where his glove went by the time Sciorpia stood up and grabbed his hand)
Yeah, I agree. Obviously she had some known contact power before Sciona took possession. And explains not only the glove but why the store clerk was waving at her to take whatever she wanted. Did not want to come close enough to be touched in any cash handling. But once grabbed, didn’t matter anymore. Exact details will eventually come out. From the skin reaction though, for it to be glowing it could be a chemical based power, but also could be an energy based power?
They make “sap gloves” loaded with shot, to add to the effect.
On the Arsenal series, the author has serious problems with units and material science in the first two books, and you can’t skip any books in the series and make any sense of the story. About the first point, Arsenal has a “sonic weapon” but it only goes to 50 dB, which wouldn’t even get you hushed in a library, and there are alloys of two strong metals that in real life are shock sensitive and are only strong in slowly-applied stresses (like your typical tensile strength test) used to protect from impacts and explosions.
The second is just a problem with series books that are not stand-alone stories. It can be done, as the Tom Swift Jr. books I read as a child of the 1960s did it at the expense of exposition explaining things readers who hopped on the train at the beginning already knew, which gets annoying after a few books. But with the Arsenal series such exposition was left out for a faster narrative.
It’s a writer’s job to work in enough exposition that you know what people are doing, and what choices they make, even if you don’t know all the specifics. Wrath of Khan was excellent in that regard. People who had zero experience with STTOS still loved it.
Tamora Pierce is a master at that. You can pick up any book in her “The Circle Opens” quartet… a 4-book series that follows another 4-book series… and read it without having to look back for anything.
Yea I knew nothing of Shakespeare The True Original Scripts. I was really surprised to find that they had been written in Klingon!
In the book Lord of the Flies the character Piggy’s glasses are used to focus sunlight to start a fire.
The character is nearsighted, and therefore the glasses have CONCAVE lenses that spread light rather than focus it. As Rick Perry once said, “Oops”.
Just imagine the possibilities! Escorpia running for Office, shaking hands kissing babys. EVERYBODY be sky high and voting for Escorpio… or eating cheetos.
Or toppling buildings with the cheetos.
Or riot on a college level? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N7jJh8pP9qo
I feel like you probably wouldn’t drool over the front of your lip if your head tilted back in glazed euphoria. The corners of your mouth would be lower.
And nervous people don’t have one giant drop of sweat hanging off the side of their head. And people bonked on the head don’t have little birdies flying around in a circle. Comics have their own time honored short-hand imagery to show certain emotional states. Just put it down to artistic license.
Hey, Dave. How often do you need to get your artistic license renewed anyway?
One of my friends carries a “back seat driver’s licence”.
For a fully justifiable reason. He was once involved in a life-changing accident, when he was a passenger. And will not meekly sit by whilst someone else is endangering his life. He has taken the decision that being courteous polite, to someone who has offered you a lift, is not worth spending the rest of your life physically and mentally impaired (or dead) as a consequence.
Hm. Well first, you’re acting like I’m objecting to something I’m not objecting to. Second, people drool whilst zonked. People sweat when nervous or tense. People have been known to “see stars” and more interesting things when their brain case gets rattled. Take it as a credit to the author’s artistic skill when those kinds of shorthands start appearing discordant with the underlying artwork when not applied with congruous realism or detail. A bit of transparency on that drool might help.
Also her nose seems off to me.
Normally, yes, the corners would be lower, butt with succulent lips like that, the middle of her lips is lower, specially when hanging half-open
Agree about the appearance of the drool: it looks too ‘solid’ to me
I call snowflame
I really like it when me an Barrack get in sync mentally, like. Arsenal is awesome. I’m starting to like Wraith.
Wraith reminds me a lot of the newest Crimson Avenger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Avenger#Jill_Carlyle
much like Arsenal reminds me of a Orcale/Ironman mix.
There are a number of good superhero novelizations out there.
I have really enjoyed Robert J. Crane’s Girl In The Box series.