Grrl Power #76 – I think she’ll integrate well
I think I remember it happening a few times in X-men, Nightcrawler would teleport in somewhere and startle someone, but it seems to me that someone just appearing out of thin air would make drinks go flying and people go falling backwards over couches. Even if you’re used to someone on your team doing that, people generally don’t sneak up on each other all that often. You hear footsteps and clothes rustling, even if they’re being quiet, you can hear them occluding other sounds, but someone just appearing like that. You can count on Harem startling people quite a bit in the comic, but she’s a fast learner and will probably not appear within arms’ reach of Sydney any more.
Check back on Wednesday, I’m going to try and figure out how to post a voting incentive for topwebcomics.com since they reset their ranking on the first. It’s just a pencil drawing I started over Xmas break. I’ll let you guess the theme.
A few requests for Max’s grin:
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.
Love Maxima’s grin in the last panel…
YES thats the best part, also nice to see that Sydney makes new friends =)
I concur with these statements
3
Ditto
[Didn’t know if the sup command would work so this is a test. This is only a test. do not adjust your screens. We control the horizontal, We control the vertical.] :)
Razafrasin. :( removed my spacing. The 3 was supposed to be right of Ditto to indicate power.
Ditto³
*ROFL*!
rofl myself. OK how did you do that? I tried the correct command for the “sup” that was in the parenthesis but it didn’t work there.
Solike this?
XD megafail..__.
Use alt code 0179, like so:
Ditto³
That… feels like cheating. But thanks anyway, I’d never thought of that.
Hmm… I wonder whether there’s a difference between “._.” and “._.” or even “._.”
All the same. Thus, no undocumented features.
Hey thanks! I am always looking for more Alt commands (like alt 0233 = é and alt 0176 = °) They make life so much easier!
Awesome.
Despite inauspicious beginnings, looks rather like Max is having a very VERY good day. Probably can’t wait to see what Sydney does when she meets Arianna.
meet,, not much,, but when she learn that the whole bank robery was a hoax,,, i can see sidney going all sidney on her ass :)
Actually, I think they will not tell Sydney that for a while. Not until they have figured her out and she has signed an NDA or equivalent thereof. Maybe not even then (“Need To Know”), etc..
And when ANYONE goes all Sydney on someones ass, it’s all kids of ugly. But when SYDNEY goes all Sydney, it is art. The kind of art that leaves nuns and sailors in tears, and grown men weeping in horror.
Arianna will probably either flee in terror, or offer her a job in phone tech support.
I’d call her up just to hear what cussing rant she comes up with next.
Areana would record them and sell it for entertainment value.
Sorry, I ment Arianna.
Heheheh. The dangers of a high-spice diet.
*Hands DaveB another Internet*
Also, is that a grin on maxima in the last panel, or is she grimacing while trying to maintain her professional posture?
Wait… Did she strike a physical blow, or just drop her guts in a moment of surprise? I thought the latter, but I can kinda see the former too…
Pop to the nose. Like a quick jab when your suprised at somebody just apearing suddenly.
Sydney is a girl you know. She was probably taught its better to hit first and ask questions later. Good training for a girl her size.
G-reat reflexes from Sydney.
considering that she managed to pop a teleporter IN MID-PHASE and get the right one. I’d say excellent spatial sense as well.
Not mid-phase, just as she phased in.
Harem is intangable when she is in mid phase.
close enough for government work :P
I’d say bad training. There are scads of people who are trained not to hit little girls first, all of them bigger and mostly way better trained than our lass. So unless she is facing frequent opponents who plan on serious damage anyway, she is just giving serious foes the excuse they need to be as nasty as they want to be.
Who has bad training, Sydney or Harem? At this point, Sydney has no training whatsoever and Harem doesn’t appear to have any, either (as evidenced by her immature tendencies and completely unprofessional nature).
I’m talking dark alley situations here. I know this is a basicly safe country but there are certin situations and areas where quick reflexes like that can save you from a whole lot of @#$!.
Expecialy for a small girl like Sydney.
Or she could have grown up with a lot of brothers who like to horseplay,
In a self defense situation, rule #1 is avoid it if there’s anyway to do so. All good martial arts teach that. Rule #2 is run away and rule #3 is do whatever you have to so you can run away. I’ve taught a few children some Hapkido moves from breaking a hold if someone grabs them. They also know that if someone grabs them yelling help isn’t going to get them help as fast as yelling stranger. Most adults will hesitate if they think it might be the parent but won’t if they know it’s a stranger.
Oh man! Is she having a hell of a day. I’d ask for combat pay for what she’s going through.
Where did she get the glasses? She wasn’t wearing them last time.
She put them on between frames, is my guess.
She was supposed to have them on the last page but I forgot them. I need to go add them back in. Along with Syndey’s visitor pass which I’ve already forgotten about. :P
Well the frames are at around shoulder hight on this page so you don’t have to do much.
thats the 1 that bashed her face into a cabnet because of the wedie, she was wearing the glasses then
Haha, it sounds like you need to write up character sheets so you have somewhere to keep track each person’s inventory (or in Harems’ case, inventories).
She’s a girl with five bodies to play dress up any way she wants to. Of course she has a lot of clothes. Just think of the amount of wardrobe a normal girl go’s through and now multiply it by five.
GOOD GOD!! Her closet is probably the bedroom and she probably has two sets of bunk beds and a spare bed in the next room.
Because obvously she can’t have one of her bodies awake while the rest are sleeping because she has only one mind and five bodies.
are you suuuurrreeee??????? that is one of the perks of split form cappabilities get some rest while working.
Five bodies, one mind. The only way she’d be walking around would be if she was sleep walking.
And I don’t think she has multiple personalites. She just knows how to multitask realy well.
Harem sleep-walking. Intriguing idea..
Sleep teleporting would be a nightmare though
According to her cast page description, she can actually have one or more bodies awake and the others sleeping. Sleeping is physical. Our minds may rest when we sleep, but they still register things. Our mind never shuts down. Harem has 1 mind and 5 brains. 1 brain can be asleep, while her mind will still function normally in the waking brains.
I can ‘t imagine, though, how Harem differentiates between dreams and daydreams. Or if she dreams about things the other bodies see or experience. Or if nightmares scare her waking bodies.
“Going downhill?”
I would have thought a punch in the nose an improvement after the mega-wegie chain of death.
Also, when Harem is teleporting, she mirror-images herself. Which actually implies she’s swapping left for right topologically.
Weird side-effect of teleporting? She can shift position mid-port? Hyper-dimensional inversion? Artist used photoshop and didn’t think of the implication?
You decide!
Look again, she doesn´t mirror image herself.
For example: You can see her thumb on the left side of the panel, but not on the right
Also, I´m loving Max´s face in the last panel. :)
Actualy, she is just repositioning herself. Her body is still in the same pose, your just looking at it from a diffrent perspective.
I think she’s a energy being who can be in five places at once. Because matter is just energy in a certin configuration that can react whith each other. Just ask a physicist.
And that is a fist thats hitting all five of them simultaneously…
Have to say I really don’t fancy anyone chances surprising sydney and I think Maxima is suddenly realising this could get very funny very soon!
No, if you look closely, Harem is holding her left hand on her chest preteleport, and after teleport (so the right version), is holding her right hand on her chest
So I gues daveB forgot about this little detail, and just mirrored Harem
No it’s her right hand in both cases. If I had just mirrored the image, the arm facing us would be the one up in both cases. Though that would have been easier to draw.
It may be less confusing to use the Elbow as a reference since it is obscured in the latter frame. If it were mirrored then it would still be visible. I think Harem needs to be physically attacked more often. This is the second time that an attack has affected all bodies. she should work to isolate the neuro reflex more. If she can, then one copy could take a huge amount of abuse and not disrupt the others. Developing that ability will make her much more valuable as an insertion agent.
In addition to needed training, this could also serve as (part of) Harem’s punishment, as I think I suggested a few strips ago.
Oh, I see it now. The elbow was obscured under the text and I missed it. I’m sure it’s much, much clearer in the giant original. ^_^
The “Vorp” in the frame obscures most of the arm, so it IS hard to tell.
Yeah the purple sound effect over the purple teleport effect is not great planning. Geeze I really do like purple don’t I? For the record I do also like certain shades of blue and green. And orange I guess. Not super keen on yellow usually.
70s Green Lantern much? :D
I like Sydneys raised eyebrow in pannel seven.
Sort of a ” What the hell is going on here? ” look.
Oh Gods, poor Harem! What a day to have gotten up for work!
New chain reaction made me laugh a lot once more, and Maxima’s face is indeed the best one in that situation!
And call me strange, but I like the fact that Harem is younger than Sydney yet still a lot more knowledgeable right now.
Also the synchronous “I’ll explain later” in panel 4.
I admit I’d like to see how the other three reacted to punch.
Probably, given the learning experience that Maxima dealt out about ten minutes ago (GP-time), making sure there’s only one of them at a time in any potentially ‘live’ situation to avoid a repeat performance. A precaution which, while probably wise, is also probably massively impractical and therefore liable to slip easily.
I see a whole new pain chain reaction starting after Punk hits her head from falling out of the chair.
Yup. This is really turning out to be a bummer of a day for Harem. Though Sydney is rapidly racking up brownie points with Max. :D
ganna spend em just as fast when some way to be wierd with max comes back
Karma at work big time here, Harem must be paying for all of her past naughtiness in one day! :D
DaveB goood job with the checkerboard shadows by the way.
What’s with the weird coloring of the star, by the way?
Shadows and light?
Maby, I don’t know…
When I designed it I was thinking the team would have both domestic and international functions, and they may wind up abroad on occasion but they’ll mostly be domestic. I dunno what the pentagon in the middle means, other than I don’t know when to stop designing.
Well considering we have a building for all the military an other functions of the national security state called “The Pentagon.” So maybe their executive operates out of it? Though since they are cabinet level wouldn’t their flag also be there with the Marines, Army, Air Force, Coast Guard etc in any of the meetings rooms for the Joint Chiefs an so on? Just a thought.
So concerning Harem’s power—she can teleport, she can create doubles an she is connected to each one as they are connected to each other an her. (On Ben 10 he found an alien that can create doubles but they are all connected. If one dies they all die. Different from another duplicator in X-men where his doubles are less than him and can die or disappear without him having trouble. With Triplicate Girl when one died she an her double still lived but she couldn’t create another clone.) Harem better be more careful or she could wind up dead or permanently injured. Lose a limb, they all do an with all the pain an agony connected to such a serious wound.
From Sydney’s reaction I’d say that she either had brothers or neighbors that she had to rough house with an fight. She is small but a ball of fire. Love that character. Can’t wait to see how she get’s her name of “Halo.”
HALO: High Altitude Low Orbital PUNCH!
Or it could simply be the usual response when greeting Sydney after they learn about what happened to Harem?
Hmmm. I would guess that they have plenty of security cameras there. I am sure Leon can pull the footage for review (and entertainment).
In fact, I would guess that Leon is pulling and distributing the footage already.
After Sydney’s showing at the bank and in the interview, gotta figure that they wondered what her arrival on their doorstep could ldea to.
I think it abreviates
Help
Another
Lunitic
Operative
or
Holiness deficient
Anti conventional
Leathally nurished
Offensive unit
Interestingly enough, our Pentagon was designed as such not because of the services of the we have today. The original planned building area necessitated the shape and when the building was located where it is today the design was kept and regularized. The DoD which uses the Pentagon still consists of the Navy and later Marines, Army (National Guard), Air Force. The Coast Guard is under DHS and only works under the Navy when war is declared.
Boy Scout Service Stars (Gold) have a Circle (Dark Blue) inside the interior vertexes where the number of the times the award was received is shown in Gold.
I like the look of suprise on the general’s face as Harem suddenly looks like she just got punched in the face.
Be weird if the one in the office got a nose bleed from it.
i also love the idea that sidney COULD hit her,,,,after the comment she make on this page https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/389,
itt prove that sidney might be faster then we give her credit for,,, or just that her comic book and rpg game geekyness gav her a kind of super anticipation/refelx capacity :)
Plus Harem apeared behind her, thats some fast reflexes there.
Sydney probably still has some adrenaline going from her ride there. But yeah, taggiing Harem is an achievment.
Sydney might have had the advantage of surprise (which seems to be her thing) but Harem should have known better – having already seen that whole tongue-flip thing. .
Also it takes a second or to for her to fully apear as a safty mechanism, so she dosn’t port into a object or over thin air. She might not be fully aware of people moving around when she telaports.
Achievement Unlocked – Hitting Port – 15 Gamerscore Points
in DCUO there’s a achievement that fits. It’s called “NOT SO FAST”. You get it for taking out an opposing player in their “super-movement” mode. (flying etc)
World of Warcraft has an achievement of the same name: this is earned by nobbling an opposing player in the Warsong Gulch battleground whilst they are under the effects of the battleground speed boost.
harem said they couldn’t –grab– her guess meant get a hold of cause touching or hitting worked.
thing about teleporting is, even if they do grab you, keeping hold of you is tricky :D
wow harem look GOOD on second panel,,, but i have to say,,,i personaly hate that glasstrend for the big branches,,, i find it ugly myself,, i like mine slender,,,i dont like having something further impeding my feild of vision
Thanks. Yeah those glasses are probably left over from when she used to dress up as an indie coffee house chick, but wanted to revise her wardrobe, probably ditched that one for the co-ed form when she realized she didn’t have an excuse to wear pleated miniskirts.
That would certainly explain the seeming disconnect between her hair/makeup and what you described as her theme for this persona… I’m guessing she’ll transition her hair/makeup to pigtails & pinks?
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think those are the same glasses she was wearing before the mega-wedgie chain of death. (I think those are broken.) She must of grabbed an old pair she had, just because she likes this body with glasses.
the military mark 1 glasses are even worse. They are affectionately referred to as B.C.Gs (Birth Control Glasses) and I’m sure Maxima has never considered any form of punishment detail involving said B.C.Gs. :)
also B.P.G (Bullet Proof Glasses) those buggers are as thick as ballistic glass
And they can survive being run over by a car (my brother and I tried it, with a pair my uncle wore in Vietnam)
but they fall apart if you hop down off a duece n a half even if you don’t shake them off your face. or if you try to wipe a jokers shaving cream off them. ____very durable___next best joke to military inteligence.
I think its more like maybe Sydney elbowed Harem in the face. Based solely on the last pose she has going. I know I myself have been known to kick people who sneak up on me like that as an instinctive reaction. This of course results in said person never doing that again,
yeah,,,i know the feeling,,,there was a time i almost took down anyone who came behind without anouncing thenselves,, as a result of,,, some badthing that happenend to me,,, and since i have some mesure or fighting training,, it almost ended badly a few times
After that experience, I suspect Harem may think twice about sneaking up on otherwise startling Sydney in the future.
Which raises rthe frightening possibility of Sydney and Harem getting into a Prank War later on. Harem can T-port and has duplicates, but would that be enough to deal with Sydney Crazy? I doubt it.
Maxima’s grin = genuine giggle fit. Score one more for DaveB!
LMAO, well played, love all the expressions, especially the smirk of Maxima’s in the last panel. Cool pose and a poop eating smirk. That one guy’s professionally quizzical look is done nicely too. And I myself have elbowed someone for sneaking up on me. I was raised in a bad neighborhood so self defense quickly becomes second nature. :)
Waaait a second. She is destroying the original there! Unless that was some very fast reuniting with another body and going out again as the white-haired one immediately after…? Same as before the super wedgie actually.. care to explain?
I was also wondering? Are those fake lenses or does Harem genuinely need glasses and wears contacts on the other 4 bodies?
Harem can teleport without destroying the original, which is how she makes the copies, but she doesn’t have to. Each copy can teleport as well, meaning she disappears as she’s reappearing at the destination.
She can teleport. She can can also leave a body in place while she “lands” in another. However, as of right now, she can only do this 4 times, making 5 bodies in total. Each of these bodies can teleport on their own, but if all 5 bodies are “out” she can’t make any new ones. Her main power isn’t cloning, its teleportation. The ability to leave (what amounts to) an energy clone is just a side effect, and is very limited.
Doh, we must have been typing at the same time… you weren’t there when i started this, I swear…
Note to self, if I ever get super powers, and the ability to teleport is one of them, stay out of punching distance when explaining said powers…
He! He! He!
Yeah, at least three to four feet. Unless they are kickers, then it’s six feet.
You know someone with 6 foot long legs? Dude!
With two legs at approximately three feet each a five foot kick range is not out of the question.
Also six foot if they know fencing footwork: a good lunge can extend your punch to near five feet (for average-height me), so allow another foot for unknown agility.
or a flying kick
No flying needed if you have the ability (and training). Besides as any martial arts instructor will tell you, a kick with 1 foot planted is more powerful and controlled.
true, I’m assuming that her training is basically Anime and Manga.
I’m betting on a mix of Drunken Boxing and extreme hyperactivity.
DaveB already said its adrenaline fueled full body turrets and just being syd
While I’m guessing “full body turrets” is a typo for “full-body Tourette’s”, the image of every part of Sydney independently tracking and attacking seems somewhat appropriate.
That left me laughing out loud long enough that someone had to come and check up on me to find out what had happened!!!
Something tells me Sydney is going to develop quite the reputation and not just for driving nuts whoever it was trying to keep up with her expletives on the tv screen!
A headshot so hard it knocked her clone off her chair.
She probable already had her foots on the table of the general
I REALLY doubt that, given that she was saluting the general just a couple of pages ago.
More likely Sydney got Harem at exactly the right moment – just as she was getting up out of that chair, probably. Because Sydney got her GOOD, she then flopped back into that chair extra-hard.
more likly sitting leaning forward in the chair and when she jerked back well even well built chairs will rock and this is mil con for subordinates use.
sydney seems a bit too happy in the last panel for just lamping someone from surprise you’d expect….apologetic? That said – it was very funny.
that is a clecnched teeth, must stop racing heartrate, grin.
…. APOLOGETIC grin.
More like ass kicking grin.
Oh yeah. Quick reflexes there, Syd. Break up the exposition with a blarg-thwack.
This is the exact reason I usually warn people of trying to startle me… not because I’m weak at heart but because I got a quick punching reflex…
Love Maxima’s smirk in the last panel :D
XD that was one of the funniest pages made better by max’s smirk
Guess Harem was the surprised one
After seeing Sydney almost attack the news reporter due to the threat of ‘ninjas’ this doesn’t surprise me… Doesn’t stop it from being hilarious though.
Also Harem’s desire to experience new experiences will be put to the test I think… because everyday with Sydney will probably provide PLENTY
Could you do a close-up on Maxima’s face? Her grin is a little hard to see.
Won’t Harem be in for another hit when she falls off that chair?
Ohhhhh, dear. Could be ANOTHER conga-line of doom for Harem.
Nah, probably not. She / they are still more or less recovering from the last one, but still a funny thought.
zoom function to see maxima her face in detail!
By the way… Did Sydney ever actually get to make her deposit? I really hope she didn’t end up just leaving the store’s receipts lying around for someone to walk off with…
well technicly it wont,,, since its a crime scene,, it will first be taken by forensic team,, examined,, and then released to the bank as deposit
Noting too that she instantly cleared the bank with her toxic barf. They are probably still waiting for the Hazmat dudes to give the all clear for that one.
syd didn’t move that far in the bank when the “crime” occured what if the puke landed on the deposit bag (would it survive or mutate?) could it ever be recovered?
Most likely still in her pocket.
FYI, in your commentary “if they’re being quite”, the last word should be “quiet”.
Sorry, that error is a pet peeve of mine.
Blastfamy!!!! every one two me, Misspellers of the world Untie!!!!
Maybe they’re being quite quiet. (fixed)
Quizzical Sydney is Cute Sydney.
Just noticed… is Syd escaping back INTO the elevator?
I’d say it is just a combat-ready stance that Sydney went into when Harem startled her.
She might be getting a bit freaked out by various factors, but her curiousity is keeping her there..
No, because Sydney hasn’t been in the elevator yet. Harem stepped out when the elevator opened at the ground floor. So Sydney is escaping into the elevator from the latest accident.
She hasn’t realy moved from the spot where she met Harem.
Harem telaported, startling Sydney, she elbowed Harem in the nose, and then Sydney said she was sorry but she suprised her.
Or she might of socked her, I’m not realy sure about that part.
I question if it was an elbow smash.
Just look at the height differance between Sydney and Harem, especially in Panel # 8. Of course, Sydney COULD have done some bizarre combo move – the shock making her jump at least a foot off the floor, and flail around wildly as she did so. I can imagine her doing something like that.
But I think it was more likely an instinctive spin-and-punch move.
I don’t know, Looking at the picture she could use a elbow smash on her.
She’s just has to lift her arm enough. It looks feasible to me.
Sydney: +5 Maxima respect.
No one mentioned it but being very nearsighted I know getting hit in the face with glasses on is 10x more painful and can cause more damage. Understandable if you end up on the floor from a quick punch.
Oooooh, teleports HATE anchors.
Can’t wait till Sydney meets Dabbler :D
Oh I have plans. Probably won’t be what you expect though. Well, not immediately anyway.
me i imagine it with a cloud of chibi sidney proding dabbler everywhere,,,, but thats just me
that opens up some interesting dialog possibilities: “if your going to poke me shouldn’t I remove my clothing first?” Or “Do they also do something like this in Japan? I REALLY want to go now!”
I think the prior mentioned stat calculation by game universe is a better responce but the pull a cross out of hammer space and try to cast dabbler into hell more likly (however I suspect syd would go beyond just cross to religious vestment likly of a nonchristian faith with prayers from the same place her cussing originates).
Shes effectively taken out two members of the team already, and without opening the poster tube
She may not have opened the “TUBE”, BUT she sort of used the tube on Max. :)
Basicly, the area efect of the objects, and Maxima not having firm footing took her down.
remember that the criminal that was arrested is also part of the group of 1 of the auxiliary teams
that is just epic