Grrl Power #765 – Home court advantage
So I guess Stalwart is a lefty? That or he’s pulling his punches because he doesn’t want to liquefy that thing he’s punching. Not because he’s concerned about the guy, but because liquid is less effective at knocking everything behind it ass over elbows. Actually, I just tend to draw people punching or holding guns or mysterious orbs in the hand closest the camera. But, considering Stalwart’s job, (punching stuff and taking hits for his teammates) it’s reasonable to assume that he’s some training as a boxer at least. Maybe a grappler too. In any case, his left hook isn’t something you want to get hit by if you can avoid it.
Okay, so, the Fel have ballistic shields, and those shields are also energy resistant. They don’t totally block energy attacks though. Well, below a certain level they do, but anything over a certain level starts breaking through. Using temperature as an easy scale, a 1,000 degree attack would be 95% blocked, at 5000 degrees, 80% would be blocked, 10,000 degrees and their shields would only be able to handle about 55% of it, etc. That’s what Cora was talking about when she said their shields could be overwhelmed. Heatwave doesn’t know any of this, but what she does know is that she has line of sight on a glowy thing on that guys hip. If it glows, she figures, it’s probably more important than something that doesn’t. Turns out she was right, and it was some kind of grenade. She doesn’t have to pour 10K Fahrenheit into a grenade to cook it off. It’s not a human made grenade full of TNT or whatever they stick in there these days, but it’s a fair bet that anything that’s designed to explode isn’t something you want to subject to a few thousand degrees if you can avoid it.
So, I missed this when I posted the last comic, but last Thursday was the 9th anniversary of Grrl Power! So, uh, woo! I thought it was 10, but that’s because I started working on the comic at least a year before I put anything up so I could get in the flow of things. Also I registered the domain like 7 or 8 months before the page went live as a way to goad myself into productivity. I guess it worked!
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Yeah, this is gonna be good.
O right. Superpowers.
Did [she] just forget they can do that?
Cora, possibly. It’s the first time she’s here (as far as we know).
So, either Dabbler gets too distracted by sexy times to gossip about supers, or she’s not very descriptive or open with her “friend” Cora about such things…
Well we just saw Cora and Dabbler gossiping about supers while they were on the morning after jog about the track. So obviously gossiping isn’t something that Dabbler restricts, if she even has a decent concept of propriety or decorum about maintaining operational intelligence within ARCHON.
Knowing someone is Strong is completely different from seeing how Strong they are.
Humans. Always underestimated…
I mean the did unknowingly land in the middle of a supers conference
No, this was simply a “Welcome to the Galaxy” conference, that just happened to be held outside the front door of the local Super HQ
The Supers Conference was prior to the Restaurant Rumble
Supers pretty blatantly aren’t physically human.
“There’s no such thing as just human.”
Nice callback!
Am I the only one who reads Math’s lines with Steve Blum’s Spike Spigel voice?
Well not anymore you aren’t…damn it!
“I felt like I was watching a dream I’d never wake up from. Before I knew it, the dream was all over.”
I feel like he’s more of a svelt Gilbert Gottfried.
This is like attacking an ant hill only to find out it’s a hive of Japanese Giant Hornets.
Nuclear-armed Japanese giant hornets.
With freaking laser beams on their heads.
I read that in Doctor Evil’s voice. This pleases me.
When I read Doctor and Evil, instead of the Mike Myers villain, I got thinking of The Master (The evil Doctor?). Hmm, no that would not be his style.
Cora seemed a bit apprehensive there but now has her first opportunity to see ArcSWAT live up to its name, yes?
Cora: So Sydney is not unique in her abilities?
Max: Oh, Sydney is definitely unique (Thank God for small favours), but that does not mean she is the only one here with extraordinary abilities to defend themselves and others.
Actually I’d say it may still be an ant hill. Not all ants are created equal. Some are vicious nasty creatures.
Cora is so used to working with and around normies for the most part that I think she thought Syd was the exception, and she only saw Syd in a minor scuffle.
I mean she IS kinda the exception in many ways, but also very much on the same level (or even below in terms of training) as most of the rest of Arcswat.
Like, there is leterally not a single worse place for the Fel ship to have decided to pick a fight on the entire planet than Arcswat HQ.
This is going to be glorious.
Maybe if they’d for some reason busted Vehemence out of jail… maybe.
I dont get the fixation people have been having on Vehemence in regards to this fight.
Because he is kinda awesome and deserves some screentime,
He really, really, really is not awesome, and he got an entire year of screentime.
The first is then obviously a matter of opinion, and how much screentime he got so far says nothing about what I think he deserves or not :P
He’s more awesome than a certain Smug someone :P
And he didn’t swipe weapons of mass destruction or ‘buy’ prohibited items off-world
Vehemence would not be worthy to shine Deus’s (praise be upon him) $8000 shoes.
Vehemence is awesome! Seems only logical that Archon would try to recruit him: he loves fighting, and Archon can provide him with may opportunities for fighting the most powerful opponents available. Plus, his power and intelligence would make him a great asset. (Sure, he started out as an enemy, but so did Jabberwocky and they recruited her!)
Jabberwocky was being controlled by Vehemence’s ‘violence aura’ so … no different situation entirely.
Vehemence is probably on the ‘Not even if the Galaxy is about to be destroyed’ list.
He draws power from violence, and enjoys it. And what they have right now is a small WAR.
If he should come out of it alive, he would be at power level ‘God of War’ and unstoppable. He already KNOWS how ArcSwat works, their powers and some of their weaknesses, so the moves used to capture him before will not work.
Also, he’s drugged with go-happy gas and generous helpings of MLP, and even if that can be 20% more awesome than other children’s shows, not only will it take a while for him to clear his head, but he’s also likely to be feeling ‘not all that friendly’.
Also, there’s at the moment 2, possibly 3 working spacecraft on Earth.
Do you think Maxima is going to let him get anywhere close to one?
(They’re not aware of the two smaller piglets that may still be en route)
Archon is NEVER going to let him out unless they can find a way to block his power.
He is both not awesome and richly deserves to fade away into the background memory of things which should have never happened.
Also, having the Good Guys required to rely on their so far biggest Bad Guy would make them look weak and ineffective. And it would do so very publicly, potentially undermining the entire program. A very fair set of questions from any news source might be: “Why did you have to bring in that guy who was the last guy standing amongst all the villains who attacked you at the restaurant? Can’t ARCHON do its job without relying on criminals?”
Complete agreement with everything you said :)
Or it could be a sign of rehabilitation: even the biggest bad guy (even those who own their own country) can be given a second chance
I don’t think he’s done anything remotely evident to show that he deserves a second chance, or that giving him a second chance would not colossally backfire and cause people to die and a lot chaos to occur. Rehabilitation generally involves the person wanting to be rehabilitated. Like you’ve mentioned before, Vehemence is rather clearly sociopathic, and he thrives on violence, without caring in which direction the violence is going, so long as he cannot be stopped. He started a fight unprovoked, including altering people’s behaviors who would otherwise have never engaged in criminal activity (and others who might engage in it would not have engaged in this PARTICULAR criminal activity). He’s done nothing to show a reason for him to be allowed any sort of ‘work release.’ In fact, he’s so dangerous that if he was not constantly high, he’d definitely be unable to be contained.
Since he IS high (as part of the way to restrain his powers), it’s not like he’ll be able to make any particularly coherent decisions anyway, which could lead to rehabilitation.
I am pretty sure that the internment center to which Vehemence and Opal were sent is a lunar facility.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-363-where-are-they-now/
If the walls are breached, the cell depressurizes and the prisoner dies (unless they have 20 points of life support). The moon is probably also farther than Opal can teleport.
Anyone capable of breaking Vehemence out can probably get whatever job it is done without his help.
Thought it was stated that Opal was held underwater
It was? I thought they simply increased the air pressure in her cell tot he point where her teleporting out of it would lead to explosive decompression.
No, she could teleport out just fine. The reason that you hold her underwater and under extreme pressure is that if she DID teleport out, it would kill her no matter where she teleported, unless it was another pressurized area. Bends from high pressure to low suddenly like that are lethal. So it’s not her environment that is deadly to her, it’s leaving it.
Yes, but what I meant was, you don’t have to keep someone underwater to keep them under extreme pressure. It seems cheaper to create a high air pressure in one of Arch-Aegis’ amrored cells than to build a special cell under may yards of water.
Keeping a pressure chamber at high pressure with machinery leaves a lot of failure points.
If the chamber ruptures, or even a pressure line splits, the pressure will drop almost instantly, and Opal would be in deep dodo. If there’s a chamber, it would require multiple layers, all pressurized independently to keep her safe. Beyond a certain point it’s just easier to dump the whole shebang into the sea…
At some point in this thread, someone should ask, “Was Opal convicted of any crime, or was she just being held for questioning?” The answer makes a big difference to the discussion. It also put a finite time limit on how long she could be held.
And the location wasn’t the moon or the ocean deeps, it was Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That’s where you hold military prisoners
She was eventually released (I would have to read all of Dave B’s missives under the comic to find out when) to the custody of Deus, and she was his teleport for his vault looting expedition later on.
Held for questioning, butt they had to make sure she staid held until they could just hand her over to the biggest villain of them all: SmugD (who promptly used her to illegally enter the Council Vault and loot it of everything they could carry out)
I’m pretty sure that Opal had no criminal record, although her boyfriend Vektor did. But Deus vouched for both of them and they were released to his supervision in Galytin.
Guesticus, you misspelled ‘hero’ when describing Deus. :) Plus if the Council is evil, as you’ve premised before, then relieving them of those dangerous items is surely a benefit to humanity. :)
Deus. The hero we need. All praise Deus.
The same (and more) is true for underwater or moon based prison cells.
“explosive decompression” Is an invention, of Hollywood.
Um, perhaps certain Hollywood portrayals are exaggerated, but uncontrolled decompression is very real (and not reading for the squeamish).
The list of industrial / commercial accidents attached to that article is well documented; while the airline ones (which are probably what you’re thinking of in film) involve people getting sucked out of airplanes, others (like the Byford Dolpin diving bell accident) are very similar to the imprisonment technique described and involve quite dramatic… rupturing.
Explosive decompression is a real thing. Hollywood might exaggerate it, in the same way they exaggerate car explosions, but it actually can happen.
Actually I should just say ‘What brichens said’ :)
Decompression kills. The early submarines increased the air pressure inside in order to allow them to open up hatches for salvage and other purposes. Those crews all died young from the damage to their bodies caused by many rapid decompression events.
Explosive decompression is quite reaL
Consider the divers on the Byford Dolphin accident, who were basically turned inside out and crushed as they passed through an opening far smaller than they were.
One additional, very real issue with holding someone under indefinite pressure is that Nitrogen is an anesthetic at 4 atmospheres, and oxygen is toxic to most people at a partial pressure of around 2 atmospheres (which you reach at around 8 atmospheres)
Not underwater. She’s held in a vacuum-sealed room, so if she opened a portal, the explosive decompression would kill her.
You never throw away a good villlian, re: The Fantastic Four and DR Doom.
Or SmugD
“Arcswat… Assemble!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hQn2DrSZr4
I imagine super heroes rarely get the chance to cut loose like this, but the thrill of that is spoiled by the fact they will be potentially killing hundreds of people, evil people who would kill them given the chance, but still people.
From what I understood form Cora’s explanation, the Fel ground troops are not people but rather organic weapons platforms. I know it’s a popular trope of there being the slimmest possibility of ‘redepmtion’ or ‘saving’ (see Borg) and the moral high ground is to try and save them… but it’d be positively refreshing to see a situation where this cliche and overused trope does not apply.
Or, that is simply Cora’s personal viewpoint: she doesn’t view the Fel as being sentient (or barely)
I mean, if you want combattants (and people) who are dehumanised and slaughtered en masse without restraint, all your have to do is read history books. WWII probably a good place to start.
WWI is a much better example of wholesale slaughter on both sides instead of actual battles, including mass deployment of poison gas weapons.
James was referring to; The Holocaust.
Both are horrendous thus we must not forget the mistakes of those who have gone before us.
Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.
Edmund Burke
What you’re saying reminds me of the “World of cardboard” speech given by Superman against Darkseid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQabrSpKcJw
“I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard, always taking constant care not to break something, to break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control even for a moment, or someone could die. But you can take it, can’t you, Big Man? What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose and show you just how powerful I really am.”
This clearly doesn’t apply to the heroes with powers that they have to turn on to use. Halo or Harem or Heatwave aren’t in any danger of killing normal people just by shaking their hands too hard (why so many H heroines?). But Maxima and Amorphous and Anvil and Hiro can be right in that zone, depending on how their power manifests.
“Let’s just charge in & attack a ship parked on a random building on this pre-FTL world they said. What could go wrong they said. They have no way to fight back they said. I think our bosses stuffed up, don’t-“*SPLAT!!!!*
I believe the right quote for this would be…
“Surprise M*****F*****!”
“Super Guys* M*****F*****!”
*since guys rhymes and is sometimes used colloquially as people
That’s definitely going to be Sydney’s take on it.
“Supers Flies M*****F*****!”
“Humans. They are not the cowering wretches we were promised! They stand. They are unruly and therefore cannot be ruled. To challenge them is to court…Death.”
To be fair, according to Rocket Raccoon, the Chitauri are one of the most pathetic, easily beaten armies in the galaxy, and he was surprised that they considered that to be a life-or-death fight. First thing he asked the Avengers when he found out they fought them was ‘You just blow up the mothership, they die right away.’ And then Tony Stark shaved the back of Rocket’s head with an electric razor.
Deleted scene. :)
That’s all well and good if
a) you actually have that intel and the means to get to the mothership
b) you have more than ten people on the planet (that you know of) with technology on a comparable level to the advanced civilizations in the galaxy
c) the enemy army actually bothered to show up the conventional way and not teleport inside your base.
I’m just saying that according to Rocket, the big dangerous enemy in Avengers is considered a joke army in the larger galaxy because of their easily exploited Achilles Heel. :) He was making fun of how useless humans are if they did not even have the technology to easily beat them.
“What, you DONT have an interplanetary defense grid capable of destroying a low level mothership? Even something as minor as a small nuclear explosion would do it! HAHAHAHA humans are so lame.”
Problem is, Rocket talks big, because he knows he himself is regarded as a cosmic joke
1) This didn’t seem like trash talk. Rocket’s a character that can make a nuclear weapon from scrap parts somehow, and the Guardians of the Galaxy have, on an average day, gone up against/messed with groups a lot more powerful than the Chitauri while still joking about it, like the Sovereign or the Ravagers or the Nova Corps. None of those groups had an easy achilles heel like the chitauri have, so it makes sense that Rocket would wonder how anyone could see the Chitauri as a real threat. But he’s also coming at it from the perspective of someone living in a far more technologically advanced set of societies than MCU Earth circa Avengers’ first movie.
2) I really am not sure that he thinks of himself as a cosmic joke at all. His bravado might just be because he’s really, really, really smart and really, really, really, really violent, not because of deep seated insecurities. He tends to be able to back up his big talk, and isnt into ‘insecurity’ (for example, the time he chastised Drax for how butthurt he is about his family dying, when like… most of the members of the Guardians have dead families and don’t do things as stupid as Drax did).
Yeah, he makes it out of scrap parts, and gets someone to get an item that is not required just to see if they will do it, and then mock them for getting him what he asked for
He is also coming at it from the perspective of not only knowing who the fuck they were facing, butt have had others discover their weak points
The Space Rodent is heavily insecure, because he knows he was a lab experiment with a limited life-span (he broke down and blubbered about it during one of the movies)
Most people have a limited life-span, if they’re not immortal :)
Your quotation there reminds me of a similar quote:
“Entering into close combat with Conan the Cimmerian is to invite a swift & certain death.”
~Scrolls of Skelos
I remember reading about a DC comic where alienas are about to attack Earth. The first officer then reminds him Earth has Kal-El and Kara Zor-El, three native Green Lanterns, and names a few other heroes known in space.
The invasion leader decides to rethink his plans.
No idea if this really happened (hear-say) but it would be awesomely funny if it’s real.
I’ve never heard of that comic, but now I want to find it.
(three green lanterns should give me some clue of when the comic is from, since there are now 6 Green Lanterns for Sector 2814 (in order of appearance) – Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, Simon Baz, Jessica Cruz. Also Jade I guess but she’s not actually formally a GL of Sector 2814, just like Alan Scott is not formally a GL of Sector 2814. So….. the comic in question, if it exists, would have to be before the introduction of John Stewart into DC Comics. But AFTER Supergirl was created as Kara Zor-El (rather than any other version of Supergirl). So… between 1959 and 1971.
Given that it might be a micro nuke, or possibly a directional (X-ray laser) nuke, maybe Heatwave should be a bit more cautious about setting off unidentified devices?
Yes, those kinds of grenades tends to be rather lethal for your own troops, but for one reason or other I doubt the Fel cares if they blow up a score or two of minions if they can get the explosive to where it can do the most harm.
i think the fact the Fel seek to “recruit” means they’re unlikely to issue infantry WMDs
They ‘recruit’ by turning them into some sort of brainwashed minions. Already by that point it’s clear that they don’t really care for them, and probably consider them expendable.
So why not issue them with the weapons that may do the most damage?
A single FEL warrior that can get into the midst of an enemy emplacement or group, protected by his shield, to set off his nuke could be considered a ‘win’.
The Japanese used Kamikaze fighters during WWII.
Had they been better equipped , such as with planes with halfway decent armor plating, the allied losses would have been horrendous.
Also, consider that the Fel might be ‘recruiting’ to make up for losses…
You are not wrong Anthony. But..
It’s really hard to armor a plane. A plane’s primary job is to fly. Armor is heavy. The more armor you add, the harder it is to achieve liftoff.
Also harder to maneuver against your own inertia. Fighter planes and jets typically shun armor in favor of making tighter, faster, combat turns.
The armor weight typically comes out of your payload budget. More armor = smaller bombs / fewer bullets.
The US Air Force minimized their armor by examining the B52 bombers that made it home. Then just armoring the parts that didn’t get shot up. The logic being that the vital areas were the ones that caused the planes to crash before returning to base. If it was shot to $#!! but the plane survived to return home. Then that was a non-vital area.
Can’t use that logic on Kamikaze planes. No matter if the Kamikaze mission is successful or not. The plane never returns home.
No, a Kamikaze mission is a failure if it does return home
Not only that, but kamikaze attacks were the amongst last, desperate gasps of a side which had pretty much already lost but hadn’t admitted it yet. They were almost out of fuel and ships and planes, and using their pilots as a sort of manned missile attack was a desperation tactic which never really had much of a chance at changing the direction in which the war was already firmly heading.
If the blast radius of a grenade is longer than the maximum throw distance of the person carrying it, it’s a very bad grenade.
It’s no longer a grenade, it’s a suicide vest.
If the enemy is carrying around micro-nukes, they are going to be using them. Better they get detonated in the middle of the enemy instead of the middle of the good guys.
Directional X-ray laser nuke? Jesus, man, stop giving weapon designers horrifying ideas.
Check out to the Honor Harrington series. Their ship-to-ship missiles warheads are x-ray laser nukes. But they’re not man-portable weapons.
The thing about real-world man-portable nukes is that they either don’t have enough range* to reliably get to a safe distance from the team using them, or they aren’t accurate enough at longer ranges to fire without a mounted, portable system to handle the guidance.
Also, it’s never a good idea to give the grunts anything you aren’t willing to let them fire at will in any encounter – it practically forces any given conflict to escalate to using the maximum firepower available.
* 1-2.5 miles in that instance ,with a 20 ton yield. If the mere image of one of these devices being hauled around and operated by foot soldiers doesn’t make you shudder, you don’t know enough about nukes and downwinders.
Maxim 37 (as amended): There is no “overkill.” There is only “open fire” and “reload.”
More accurately, they are nuclear pumped lasers. The nuke itself isn’t a threat to the enemy ships, their shields are capable of absorbing the damage from a nuke and the odds of a nuke even getting close enough to be a threat are pretty slim. Their missiles instead deploy multiple laser heads which are energized by the nuke, creating tremendously energized lasers. These are capable of triggering ‘above’ and ‘below’ the invulnerable sidewall force fields of capital ships, and they are energetic enough that no amount of armor is able to do much other than absorb some of their energy as it rips through the ship.
The technology of this series is very well developed, described, and adhered to. And as it advances during the several wars it continues to be realistically portrayed.
David Weber didn’t come up with the idea out of nowhere. Nuclear pumped lasers were actually designed as part of Reagan’s SDI program back in the eighties. The idea was that you could use one nuke to pump a dozen or more lasing rods all pointing at different incoming missiles. I don’t know if they ever got them to work, but if they did I am pretty sure they would still be classified.
Yes, nuke pumped lasers were a part of the SDI.
A failed part.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/zau2/
It’s a fantastic concept, conceived in 1963, using the high energy ions of a nuclear explosion as the trigger for a laser. The components of the laser are destroyed by the nuke, but in the brief seconds before they are destroyed they could create an immensely powerful laser.
causing a misfire in a nuke is the safest way to detonate a nuke.
a nuclear explosion takes a highly coordinated set of explosions to cause fusion. if the procurer explosion are even slightly off fusion will not accrue and you’re left with a (very) small dirty bomb. still not the best out come but far better then what should happen.
ITYM ‘disarm’ and not ‘detonate.’
Of course, the safest way to disarm a nuke still isn’t to cause a misfire. It’s to remove the explosives which trigger the nuclear reaction.
No, believe they did mean ‘detonate’, as in, if they have to set it off when disarming fails, the safest way is to cause a misfire
No, you fuckwit, because words have meanings.
Detonate – explode or cause to explode.
You don’t disarm a nuke by detonating it. Detonating a nuke is what the nuke was designed to do in the first place.
Congrats on the Anniversary.
Not only congratulations on the anniversary, but a huge thank you for the nine years of a truly ripping yarn.
So, Stalwart is tethered to his location when hitting something.
And he hits the forcefield hard enough to knock a group of aliens back,
so are the forcefields interlinked or were the aliens bunched up too much?
Well, it says in his description he is extremely resistant to knockback, so I would assume that would include his own as well. That really only gives one direction for all that force to go. We could be seeing the shockwave of the atmosphere being blasted away from him.
Unrelated, but I’m curious. Considering that we’ve seen Sydney’s shield change shape at high speeds to become more aerodynamic, if she accelerated to max speed (mach 16) and impacted the fel ship, would she have enough force to punch through? And could her shield withstand that much impact at its present level? Alternatively, she could grab Achilles I’m her Shield, and do a max speed bombing run, and blink her Shield off and on long enough to launch him like a missile. He doesnt seem to mind being thrown around the battlefield like a battering ram.
Do you really want to see what the insides of Mr Buble would look like if the ships’ shields (or simply the hull itself) is strong enough to make Mr Buble come to a dead stop? (emphasis on ‘dead’ for the person inside Mr Buble)
O was thinking about that after I posted, and especially when she uses her flight orb, have we seen any indication Sydney is effected by inertia when bubbled? Meaning, if she came to a dead stop, would she feel it? Or would her inertia be absorbed?
@Guesticus
Isn’t Sydney immune to inertia/gravity when flying, courtesy of the flight orb? Also, Achilles can take a railgun to the chest without as much as a scratch.
They should be fine.
Oh yeah, Achilles would be fine. He was described as being able to shrug off attacks that would destroy matter at an atomic level.
It’s too bad Sydney can’t use three irbs at once, or she could drag him on her light hook behind he at speed, then whip him around for extra speed and power. But if she trud to go mach 16 without the shield, the air friction alone would kill her. She wouldn’t even be able to breathe at the speed.
You want to bank on that? And not talking about when Sydney chooses to stop (and we still haven’t seen her come to a dead stop after travelling at high speeds, let alone the MACHs), talking abut when something else stops her, as in, she is still going at those speeds, Mr Buble suddenly isn’t, there is still high chance she will become a bug hitting a windshield, if not start bouncing around inside her hamster ball
Remember what Daphne said when asked what would happen if one of her died? Yeah, got a feeling Sydney would rather not find out any time soon either, if not ever
@Guesticus
That’s the real question. If the flight orb can cancel out inertia as well as gravity, then she is golden.
I’m just too lazy to skim through 700+ comics to find any kind of proof.
It’s simply something that hasn’t come up, yet
And talking about Sydney (and Mr Buble) coming across something they can’t just barge through physically, and we have only seen them go through something twice (first through that roadside sign when Sydney was flying home drunk, and then through the head of the Tractor-beam Squid on Alari Prime)
She didn’t bounce around, taking injuries, on Alari Prime;
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-658-round-1-fight/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-665-rock-paper-particle-beam/
That seems like some solid acceleration and heavy impact there, and it did absolutely nothing to her.
Even if it wasn’t mentioned specifically, I judge it to be ‘good enough’ for at least an Achilles Launch.
Neither of those examples are of Sydney going at high speeds and then suddenly being stopped
How about I put you in a hamsterball, then pick that up and slam it into the ground, at say 50km / hour?
Want to take any bets on how suddenly you’d be stopping your momentum?
I am seriously wondering how you think you still have any kind of argument left.
It’s not me who has run out of argument
@Guesticus
Your lack of any decent counterpoint says otherwise.
Have a nice day.
That’s because you haven’t come up with anything new to counter the counterpoints
Was already having a great day… before started reading the comments
She wasn’t going at mach 16 at the time, as far as I can see. Also, her flight orb seems to cancel out inertia but we have already seen that even the orbs have limits. That first kaiju attack seriously strained her shield, something we haven’t seen happening ever before or after. So, extreme circumstances CAN overwhelm even the abilities of Sydney’s magitech orbs. And since she doesn’t know what the limits of the inertial dampening field of her flight orb are…
@Guesticus
Guess you live up to your reputation. Congrats on actually being ‘that guy’.
She can survive very high acceleration right? So it would be reasonable to assume that she can handle deceleration too. Hard to say if this is a effect from the florb or Mr Bubble.
She took some time to get up to full speed when flying with Max but that might be more a control limitation rather than a limitation of the inertial control.
It didnt take time for her to get up to full speed. Maxima was slowly accelerating to test how fast Sydney could go, and to see if Sydney would notice the increase in speed. We see later on Alari homeworld that she can go from zero to Mach 16 almost instantaneously, if she wants to.
And again, the florb has its own localized gravity and inertia within it, separate from the outside world, which is why Sydney’s hair doesn’t move when she’s flying or when she’s upside down. It also explains how she isnt crushed by sudden acceleration.
Not banking on it. That’s why I was asking if’d anyone saw anything that indicated what kind of protection she might have.
But in #658 the giant kaiju hit her with that spread beam that bounced her all over the place, and she stayed centered and unharmed, and I think the flight orb is key. As long as she holds it and the shield orb, she seems safe from impact, as long ac the shield stays intact. She can be moved. But I don’t think she can be forced into the Shield. Plus she doesn’t seem to suffer any issue from g forces. Accelerating to mach 16 would knock most people unconcious. If not collapse their lungs. So she seems to have some protection at least. Dont know if she has enough to protect her from a full speed collision.
Being bounced around like a pinball wizard isn’t the same thing as coming to a sudden stop at MACH 1 (and, again, not talking about Sydney putting the brakes on)
For all intents and purpose it is. Put a marble in a jar and then bounce it around. See what happens.
Sure, if you can provide a marble with its own inertial dampener, and while Mr Buble bounced, Sydney remained in middle unmoving!
Indeed she did. And she came out of a massive groundslam unscathed.
Ergo; there is plenty of proof to reasonably assume the flight orb is equipped with inertial dampening.
She. Was. Not. Moving. At. MACH speeds. At that time!
And already stated that she does have inertial dampeners
The point is: we have not seen Sydney move at high speeds, and come to a sudden stop that she did not control!
Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. So we dont’ know.
And neither does Dave, because he hasn’t had to decide yet for any plot point.
When it comes up, the rule of cool or the rule of funny will probably apply.
Can we all agree that it’s best not to find out you can’t survive a Mach 16 impact after the fact so she should probably find an alternative option and Max wouldn’t let anyone attempt such a plan without first considering all possible alternatives.
Which is the point was attempting to make, thank you Noname and VGer47
Best I can think is when the abomination grabbed her and slammed her into the ground hard and fast. But I believe she was holding the flight orb at the time so inertia could have been cancelled by it.
Still! It shows that Sydney’s shield and flight orb don’t completely lock her into place… Vehemence smashed it pretty hard but he was low power and she arguably had the ground to anchor her, which could explain why she takes hits better on the ground if Mr. Bubble is anchoring onto inert matter it passes through
We also saw her being dragged along the ground while inside Mr Buble
We also saw Maxima not being able to move the container holding the orbs.
Seems there is a bit of artistic leeway in the rules there ;)
As has been pointed several times: that was simply a combination of Maxi being caught unawares by the sudden stop, and Maxi standing on the edge of the curb (we also saw what happened to Sydney when she left Tubey inside her car when going to the bank)
I know you love to discuss and argue, but in this case you are just flat out wrong.
Max tried to move the orb container, and it just stopped dead, forcing HER to move and then slip.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-66-hero-baiting/
Again: Maxi wasn’t expecting Tubey to stop like that, and before she could recover, she slipt and then got pissed
You… are aware you repeated me in that post, right? o_O
Again; She moved the tube, which stopped dead, which THEN forced her to move and slip. You know, Maxima, arguably the physically strongest person in the world.
Therefor, your argument that we saw Sydney being dragged along the ground is nothing more than artistic leeway, since the worlds strongest person couldn’t do so before on normal footing.
I don’t think Maxima used all her strength in that case. even if the orbs could have resisted the tube certainly would not have.
Max wasn’t on normal footing, she was standing on the edge of the curb
@Guesticus
She was, and the comic link I provided shows it too. It isn’t untill she is moved by momentum of her own force that she steps onto the edge and slips off.
@Sebastian
If so, I doubt it would have been enough force to actually move Maxima herself.
So again, I point to artistic leeway, in order to tell a story, rather than any hard set rules for the orbs. In this case anyway, since the orbs are rather defined in other aspects.
I don’t think it has been consistently depicted. Sydney has bruised her hip when the ground was knocked out from under her force field and she fell against the shield as the shield fell.
I don’t recall if she had the flight orb in a hand at that time, but that should be irrelevant to the force field orb keeping the force field at a constant distance from her on all sides, or at the very least not allowing her to ram up against the force field as she/it falls.
Sydney does not experience effects from inertia while using the fly orb. She also has localized gravity on her, which is why her hair doesn’t flip all over the place while she’s flying.
Using Achilles in this manner just gives me this tingly feeling all over. I bet he’d go ‘Weeeeee’ as well :D
As awesome as it would be to see Achilles being used as a missile it would be suicide for Sydney to shut off Mr Bubble when flying supersonic. At that speed air will hit you very hard.
Agreed. She would have to be wearing a protective suit. Maybe The Mighty Halo could wear a Halo suit… but that seems like a lot of setup for a one shot like thst.
It would take some serious armor. Like power armor from Fallout. Iron Halo incoming with a Achilles dive bombing!
She could just scoop him up, Road Runner style, on the front of her bubble? She’d only have to slow down a little to launch him right off, as an independant object.
But how could he hold on to Mr Bubble when supersonic? He is not super strong and the bubble have no handles. If memory serves me Dabbler had some super bondage grenades that could be useful or this purpose.
Pure speed, really. Letting the pressure of air against him and the bubble do the work.
BUt yeah, that’s why I referred to the old Road Runner cartoon. It doesn’t have to be perfectly reasonable, Rule Of Cool!
Stalwart can increase his own mass. During the fight with Vehemence he declared “I weigh as much as a space shuttle now”.
So if he knows a shockwave is coming, he can probably just make himself really heavy, and the equal and opposite reaction barely shifts him.
Happy anniversary (for last Thursday)!
I guess you’re leaving Halo for later in the battle.
Maybe because these will remind her of the Cthulhu-esque monsters she fought on the Alari homeworld, give her flashback, then she’ll remember her nightmare, get mad, shout ‘You made me run!’ and promptly try to destroy them all with her upgraded PP-Orb.
If they’ve got any sense they should surrender as soon as she enters the fray.
Yes, uh, much congratulations on that :D
Uh, that may read ironic… It wasn’t meant to, I’m just bad at such things.
Yeah, ‘repelling an alien invasion’ is one of the things they all signed up for.
Illegal aliens armed and attempting terrorism. Sounds like police work. Maybe an agency with greater offence and defence but basically the same job.
Had to look at the page a while before realizing that evil potato was a grenade.
Hopefully Daphne will get a chance to show what she can do this time.
Exactly. I think he’d love it. It’d probably be the highest speed impact hed ever had. Just imagining him punching through the ship, and 20 feet into the ground, and having to get dug out again. Youd just see his hand rise out of the rubble, “Fives!! Worth it!!”
You seem to be mixing up Daphne (Harem) with Achilles. I doubt Harem would survive that grenade.
Looks like porthos9438 added to the wrong comment :)
Not only is Stalwart pulling his punches but so is ArcSwat, as Maxima is still on the sidelines :D
Actually they are “missing” more that just Maxima.
They still have a couple of durable melee personnel still not here though other glass cannons might be better saying out of this or waiting for suitable opportunity to be useful. Harem as a single body potentially could get involved in melee effectively also. Her portable kit could have interesting items even for this.
Good to see Brook in action. Hopefully she’s worked through her issues with losing a toe,. Then again, maybe she’s still upset and frying Fel is just a convenient way for her to work out some of her anger.
Grats Dave on 9 years.
Wait until they turn Halo loose with the PPO and the shield orb.
So with line of sight are any shield which aren’t opaque basically useless against her, or is she projecting the heat along a path? I couldn’t imagine it’d be healthy if even a small portion of air in a direct line between her and targets is thousands of degrees hot and radiating that heat out.
Doesn’t she have like two types of heat based attacks? One where she simply ‘heats it up’ like a microwave oven (if she can see it, she can cause it to heat up) and another where she manifests flames at a limited range (that is what helps her fly)
There were a number of discussions earlier in the comic about how shields function in regards to lasers when they’re transparent. As I recall, the answer basically came down to, “Some shields are designed to block high energy levels of light and will actually work against it, some won’t.” And since we’ve been told that energy weapons can overwhelm their shields, I assume that means they *have to* overwhelm the shields, not just ignore them outright.
I guess I’m wondering if anything in her path heats up as well. Let’s say she’s shooting through a glass window at a tree. Does the glass heat up and melt or does the tree combust without the glass being impacted. It’s less about lasers getting through shields than how her power works.
Like said above: it’s possible she has two abilities
In the aftermath of the warehouse incident Heatwave did cleanup of the fires accidentally set by Sydney. It was explained that Heatwave can both heat or cool an object depending on her concentration. If we want to put actual physics into superpowers it looks like she can directly increase or decrease the speed of vibration (a.k.a. heat) of the molecules in the target object. This ability may or may not be affected by an intermediate enegry field. (microwave ovens can heat objects through glass containers)
Or it may just be cool stuff in a comic book. Pick one.
Kinda what said: she can heat things she can see up due to increasing the vibrations of the object itself, force fields that allow her to view said thing would not stop her ability
Collateral damage is a thing that exists. It’s the same reason why Max can’t just over-nuke every Super she fights.
So, what is causing the vortex around the one guy’s head? Third panel, left. Looks like a dust devil picking up dead leaves, but I’m pretty sure those leaves ween’t dead a few seconds ago.
I think it’s part of the Fel’s ballistic shielding. Dave mentioned they are also resistant to energy attacks, and with Heatwave firing possibly thousands of degrees at it, it’ll be strained a little.
That’s their repulser shields that Cora mentioned, the ones that block energy and ballistics.
Thought it was Hiro at first, butt then looked closer after reading these comments and saw the closeup of panel three in panel five, which means we still have to see Hiro in action :)
Hiro is elsewhere in the battle, probably airborne. There is little advantage it keeping your big guns together in this kind of situation. So, Halo and Maxima will be attacking other parts of the invasion force.
Its just, we saw him exiting the building with Wart, and then suddenly it’s Heatwave in the fight?
Looking at it again, what look like dead leaves is actually the optic array of the Fel behind that one
Yeah, go Heatwave! She needs some more screen time!
Also massive congrats on the anniversary, Dave.
The flip side of that, aggressively engaging the enemy,
puts her in a position to get killed.
I agree. The last time she went toe-to-toe with an enemy she lost one.
At least give her some decent body armor if she is signing up to be the target in alien skeet shooting.
If memory serves, Brooke’s flight ability is relatively basic – little more than sitting on a thermal updraught. She may simply not have the load capacity to carry a significant weight of armour, or may decide that the price in agility and situational awareness is too much for the protection gained. Of course, that really only applies when she’s deliberately gearing up to look for trouble; in this case, trouble has come a-knocking, and speed of response was probably the biggest factor.
I agree, she isn’t the fastest thinker, so strategy may not be her strong point. But I still hope she gets more screen time.
Plus, maybe she’s wearing her Kevlar socks this time?
“You know what they call flying soldiers on the battlefield?
Skeet.”
– Tino from https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2011-10-02
be fun to find out the psych doctor actualy has psionics or telepath jean grey level powers after all noise of battle she stomps out mad cause its disrupting a healing session or helping some one ” IM DEALING WITH A PATIENT” and fwoom all enemy targets just black out passout XD
A psychic certainly has potential when dealing with hive minds… jam their signal.
They could also be overwhelmed by it. Think army ants killing a cow.
Cora to her Xevonarchy ‘buddies’: “Umm, we may need to put a stricter restriction on planet designated ‘Dirt’. Yeah, it seems they have individuals, yes yes, individuals able to single-manipulation-pod deal with an entire Fel army. And don’t make me relay what they did to the battle carrier!”
Or maybe that will be the report from the two Space Piggies when they finally show up
Speaking of reactions: remember how dismissive the Evil Twilight Council were towards Archon and Supers? Yeah, got a feeling they won’t be so dismissive after this
Reminder. Dabbler is a member of the Council… and was able to stalemate Maxima in a spar.
And remember how ‘pleased’ they were with Dabbles joining Archon?
Hmm, didn’t think Dabbles was actually part of the Council, simply that she knew of them, because she is from another planet so would have had to get cleared by the Council before mingling with the locals
You know, like having to clear the Secret Customs before passing through the visible customs, be told what she can and cannot reveal to Archon and the rest of the Dirticans
No, she literally is part of the Council. It’s been outright stated already about how the Council was initially uncomfortable with a member of the Council joining Archon, then Dabbler made that ‘you need to be able to fit one before you can fit two’ comment which got Maxima all angry :)
I’m just saying that while Maxima is one of the most powerful beings on Earth, there are probably aliens that are more powerful. Think of it like in Endgame. Captain America’s shield is adamantium/vibranium allow, and pretty much indestructible. But Thanos’s sword was able to slice through it several times, because the shield is just the most indestructible item on EARTH…. not in the universe (for example, Uru, and whatever Thanos’s sword is made of)
Also, while Maxima is physically powerful and fast, it’s rather likely that the Council would not attack her where she’s strongest – they’d attack where she’s weakest, like her mind (since she does seem to be able to be susceptible to mind control, for example).
You don’t fight Superman in a fist fight. You use magic or red solar radiation or a psionic attack, because fighting hand to hand is pretty much a losing strategy unless you have Kryptonite. And Maxima doesn’t have a Kryptonite weakness (far as we know, unless that geode is her kryptonite or something).
Or to quote Sun Tzu:
So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.
Oh right, and someone linked that page with a ‘fit two’ quote (which sent me off on a mini-swim up to the Wars Warehouse Wuckus :P)
The point is: fight Maxi, and you fight all of Archon, while she may be vulnerable in some areas, she has powerful allies to run interference if needs be, same as everyone else
Yes. But all of Archon is a lot less than all of the Council, who are situated throughout most of the world’s governments, corporations, and media. I’m of the opinion that Archon vs the Council would not work out well for Archon. Even in the event they were to win such a confrontation, it would be a pyrrhic victory at best. Most likely they would simply not win though. Maxima is tough, but magic probably still works on her or as a defense against her (judging from how Dabbler alone was able to stalemate her), and vampiric domination likely works as well (given how it almost worked with the Super-Mannekiller (who did seem to manage to still scratch her with the laser claw thing, but the crack in the lens seemed to let her resist long enough for Hiro to blow it up). She’s probably vulnerable in other ways as well. You just do not attack Maxima where she’s strong, like… physically. Same for anyone in Archon. The more resources an enemy has, the more likely they can be a real threat capable of beating Archon. And the Council has a LOT of resources.
As does Deus, but Deus is the hero of the story obviously. And any inference that he’s actually the big boss battle is merely a misdirection to throw the weak-minded off of the trail that he’s the world’s greatest hero. All praise Deus.
Even if Archon loses, the Council of Evil Monsters loses more: they get exposed to the world, no more hiding, no more feeding on the clueless hyu-mons
As for SmugD: he ain’t no ‘big boss’, he’s a minor annoyance, like a mosquito
No seriously. The Council is worldwide. Archon is national. Also before you start calling them ‘the Council of EVIL Monsters’ watch “The Boys.” I could call Archon the corporation of megalomaniacal superhumans being narrowly kept from dominating the world and causing chaos at will by greed if I wanted to go and create negative associations :).
And you’re just jealous about Deus. It’s okay. Deus forgives your insolence. You’re playing checkers and he’s playing underwater 3D upside-down chess and Go at the same time. :)
Again: if there is an open war between Archon and the Council (they are evil because they have been controlling governments for thousands of years, and actively feeding on people under cover of the Veil), the Council may win the fight, butt they will lose the war (unless they somehow manage to prevent the Veil from being pulled down from ordinary peoples’ eyes)
Actually, would consider Archon to be The Boys and the Council to be… whatever that was you said
Controlling governments does not de facto make you evil. Especially if you want to give them credit for things like the evolution of democracy and the worldwide economy, which they seem to have had a direct hand in creating. They seem to have kept disparate groups in line and PREVENTED them from taking over humanity, in fact. That’s the opposite of evil.
Also, Archon is definitely not ‘The Boys’. The Boys are human (except for The Female of the Species). It’s a lot easier to argue that Archon (or at least most of Archon) is at risk of being Voight. They’re (mostly) a well paid group of supers who are virtual celebrities, and Archon is a for-profit organization, despite being under the DoD (which, if you recall in the Boys, was the goal of Voight – to have supers get involved in government stuff).
Now I’m not actually saying Archon is evil. They obviously arent. But there’s as much evidence of the Council being evil as Archon being evil.
I’ve got to disagree with you here.
Archon was called in by the Council when they couldn’t handle their Vault of Really Bad Things You Don’t Want to Get Away being pillaged.
You don’t typically call in your weaker little sister to fight the bully who is pushing you around if you’re already powerful enough to take him on yourself…
If you’re saying that The Council could eventually beat Archon via better positioning in worldwide governments, corporations, and media, kind of a Sokovia Accords struggle, then this is something I’d allow given the current canon. But in a straight up fight? The Council isn’t shown as being more potent than Archon.
In a straight up fight, I do think that Archon would be at a severe disadvantage. Most of them, except for Dabbler and Sydney, have no real defense against the use of magic. The Council has vastly superior numbers, and would target Maxima first – likely with psionics, domination, or magic. There would be a significant loss to the Council for every Archon member taken down, but in the end, the Council would win in a fight with the resources they have, compared to the resources Archon has.
Plus it’s not entirely clear if Dabbler, who has fought Maxima to a standstill in sparring every time (according to Maxima herself) would be siding with Archon.
Yes, they called in Archon to the vault, but not because they thought they’d need Archon’s help (although they did wind up definitely needing Archon’s help). They called them in because it was related to the Sciona investigation. Which was a joint investigation WITH Archon since the Veil helps the US as well as the Council by preventing mass panic. Physically, Maxima is WAAAAY stronger than the defenses of the vault (The weakness aura and the guardian – even at 5% power, Maxima decimated the guardian). But the Guardian was a physical attack. Maxima is going to generally be the winner in most physical attacks, which is why you attack Maxima in a way that’s not a physical attack unless you know for sure they have someone stronger.
In short, you do not fight Superman in a fist-fight without kryptonite or red solar radiation. You attack Superman where he has weaknesses. Same goes for Maxima.
Then with the additional fact that the Council is better set up worldwide with the media, world governments, and likely VARIOUS military forces, and with the fact that the Council includes ALIENS, it would be sort of hubristic to assume that there are no aliens in outer space whatsoever that they could call upon who are able to beat Maxima. Remember…. the geode…. came from space.
1) Superman is a member of the Justice League. That doesn’t prove that all, or even a majority, of the League’s members can keep up with him in a fight.
2) We’ve seen members of the Council be thoroughly stunned at the discovery of how powerful ARCSWAT members are (notably including Dabbler herself, on the ARCSWAT side of that; after all, vampiric or lycanthropic Terrans are still Terrans) and then have a hushed conversation about how, if Supers really wanted something, there was likely nothing the Council could do to stop them.
3) The– uh… Nevermind. Was about to point out something about Maxima in that sparring match until I realized it would also apply to Dabbler. Still, the above two points stand.
If she’s fast enough, Black Canary can shut down Clark. She is also a very skilled hand-to-hand fighter, right up there with Batman.
This is highly dependent on the writers.
Batman is an unpowered mortal who could kill Superman with a kryptonite bullet (this also applies to any mortal, but making it Batman somehow makes it seem more special…);
Wonder Woman is an immortal goddess who could beat Superman in hand to hand combat due to superior training, could incapacitate him with her lasso, and could block any attack of his with her bracers;
Flash could … well Justice League made it so that Superman was faster than Flash, so he couldn’t do anything;
Aquaman could … well Justice League pretty much made it so that anyone who isn’t as fast as Flash or apparently Superman is helpless, so again, Aquaman is fucked.
But still, anyone with a kryptonite bullet can kill Superman. Except he can move faster than bullets, so never mind that weakness doesn’t count after all. We already saw him suck in huge amounts of kryptonite gas in Batman vs. Superman and he just shrugged it off after a few seconds. And in Superman Returns he is able to take a kryptonite shiv to the kidney and still is able to lift a krypronite continent above his head any fly it away from Earth.
So yeah, writers make Superman more powerful than Superman could ever be.
“Flash could … well Justice League made it so that Superman was faster than Flash, so he couldn’t do anything;”
Actually even in Justice League, Flash is faster than Superman. It’s just Superman can SOMETIMES tag him. The thing is Flash can’t actually do anything that can seriously hurt Superman. Whereas if Superman tags Flash, even once, then the fight is over. If you recall, Flash and Superman (from the Justice Lord Earth) did fight in Justice League, and Flash lost, and would have died if not for Lex Luthor de-powering Justice Lord Superman.
Wonder Woman also hasnt ever actually beaten Superman in Justice League, although she did beat a mind-controlled Superman once in the comics, when he was being mind controlled by Maxwell Lord. She’s clearly the better fighter but Superman did nearly kill her, and she won by snapping Maxwell Lord’s neck, breaking the mind control.
Wonder Woman also did beat Superman in a fight in Injustice (she broke his arm), but half of what’s in Injustice tends to be the comic writers making stuff up as they go on. Some of it is good, some of it is dumb, but it’s really not consistent whatsoever with New Earth’s Superman.
Batman has beaten Superman around 5 times. Sometimes without Kryptonite. The most definitive beatdown was The Dark Knight Returns (where he did use a kryptonite compound).
Batman beat him in The Dark Knight Strikes Again, but had the help of Flash (who planted dozens of explosives and electrical impulses on him capable of temporarily stunning Superman, The Atom (who goes in Superman’s inner ear to throw off his equilibrium), and Green Arrow (with a kryptonite arrow). Then Batman won with kryptonite-laced gauntlets.
Batman also beat Superman in Hush, although Superman was under Poison Icy’s control at the time and Batman beat Superman by first using an entire city’s electrical grid and hypersonics to slow him down a little, then having Catwoman throw Lois Lane off a roof to snap Superman out of Poison Ivy’s love spore-based control.
Batman beat Superman in Red Son by using red solar radiation, but when Superman got out of the trap that Batman put him in, Batman committed suicide before Superman could get revenge.
Batman beat Superman in Endgame (not the Marvel one:) ) by using Fenrir, which is a special Batman armor designed to take on the entire Justice League, and even then Superman almost kills him… so Batman spit some kryptonite pellet gum in Superman’s eye to win the fight.
The only other 3 superheroes that have ever given Superman a genuine fight have been Martian Manhunter, Captain Marvel, and Captain Atom (who used his manipulation of radiation to make red solar radiation). Also Supergirl has beaten Superman a couple of times in the comics, and Power Girl beat Superman once, but they’re Kryptonians like him (and Supergirl was trained in how to fight by Wonder Woman and Batman, and had been sun-dipped for 30 years in her ship on the way to Earth, so that makes some sense).
Dabbler qualifies to be on the Council, but is with Archon instead.
Reverse with Kronachrome: she qualifies to be with Archon, butt no one bothered to ask her so she went with the Council of Monsters
No. Dabbler literally is a member of the Council – Aliens and demons are both parts of the Council, and Dabbler is an alien and a demon. So she’s part of the Council. She’s also the first alien that the government has allowed to be in Archon ‘as a civilian contractor.’ Although there is also Pixel. But Pixel is a bit unique in that she’s both a filanthrope (werejaguar) AND a super. Dabbler’s not a super at all. She’s an alien demon mage. All of which are parts of the Council.
And mages are not considered supers, since apparently anyone can learn to be a mage if they are lucky enough to find the right books (ie, Gwen). Krona is probably the closest thing the Council has to a super, but she doesn’t have the ‘perfect body type’ that supers have, so she’s probably something OTHER than a super.
Just because aliens and demons are on the Council, doesn’t mean that all aliens and demons are on the council (or probably even know it exists)
Have never agreed with that bullshit ‘perfect body type’ propaganda bullshit (so bullshit it needs to be stated twice)
1) They literally say in the introduction of Sydney to the Council that there are representatives who speak for all the aliens on earth, and Decollette, who speaks for all the demons on Earth. You can’t just ignore stuff when it doesnt suit your fan theory :)
2) Every single super has had a perfect, idealized human form. They’ve mentioned this multiple times by different people in the comic as well, each of whom have either studied the super phenomenon or been talking about people who have studied the super phenomenon (ie, Sandy or Peggy), or who themselves are supers (ie Harem). There has yet to be any super in the comic that does NOT have an idealized human form, in fact. As soon as there’s a super that’s like ‘The Blob’ or ‘Toad’ or ‘Big Bertha’ I’d concede a point to you. But so far all the evidence shows that it’s an accurate description of an identifying trait of supers, not BS.
I don’t see any canonical reference for this, disregarding ;)
The canonical evidence is that one of them ‘speaks for the aliens on Earth’ and another ‘speaks for the demons on Earth.’ There is also another strip in Grrlpowercomic where Dabbler is explaining how there is a process that aliens go through when they come to Earth for anonymous sex tourism or whatnot. Think of it like this – the Council is like Customs, Border Patrol, and ICE for aliens and demons.
You mean, like you ignoring everything about SmugD? Everything we have seen him do? o_O
And again, you seem to have failed to comprehend what you supposedly read. Just because they have representatives who speak for all aliens (does that include the Alari?) or all demons, doesn’t mean that all aliens or demons are aware of the Council
Didn’t say that isn’t how Grrlverse works regarding super body-forms, just don’t agree with it
Considering, as you pointed out in another post, the number of known supers is miniscule
Wow, has never agreed that something the author has stated is a fact of his setting is actually a fact in this setting. You are so super special!
Describing it as bullshit and following up with why it is bullshit would be a better tactic. But since you’re just an idiot you’ll just say “nu-uh” instead of doing the actual work of making a case and citing reasons why that case is valid.
Well, somewhat similarly to Sydney, Krona appears to have and possibly require a physical object in order to manifest her powers. This might put her out of the otherwise blanket ‘physically perfect’ body type which supers with intrinsic powers all appear to enjoy.
What physical object does Krona require? The goggles? I think she just created those. Most of her powers seem to be not based on any physical object, but on some sort of knowledge which lets her hack the universe.
“Physical” was the wrong word to use… Here you can see her pulling up her interface to her power. It doesn’t appear to be physical, but it still isn’t the same kind of internalized power that all other supers seem to have, where they can just will themselves to fly, or point and send out a zap/blast/stream of fire/whatever.
The point being, Krona doesn’t just concentrate hard and activate her power set. She has to interface with … something … in order to make things happen, just like Sydney has to interface with her orbs. Note that Maxima threatened to cuff her after ordering her not to “hack the universe” in the Great Arrest Your Ally Debacle. This isn’t a threat which would have much impact on Jiggawatt or Heatwave or Maxima, because they (presumably) don’t need digital freedom to turn on their powers.
Yes but what she activates seems to be based on some sort of power or ability that she can access, not an actual thing. But I see what you’re saying Oberon, since the panel that Krona summons up seems very similar to the type of panel that DABBLER summoned up when she was trying to scan Sydney’s orbs. Except (and this is one reason that I think your opinion could have merit), Krona’s summoned panel seems to be the same colors as Sydney’s orbs are, and the same NUMBER of colors (seven). But I’m not sure if that means she has an object, or that she can just summon it with some built in power. Maybe she’s of the race that created the Nth level tech that Sydney uses even, and she just doesn’t realize it, or she’s a different Nth level race that had an alternate evolution to hacking the universe from the Nth level race that created the orbs (one through natural evolution or secret knowledge, one through technology).
But what it does not prove is that Krona is a ‘super.’ Because supers all seem to have certain defining physical characteristics. Even Pixel has those characteristics when she’s in a form that has superpowers (her werejaguar becomes a physically ‘ideal’ female form (en-boob-en!), compared to her diminuitive and non-superpowered human form.
Yes and no. Pixel is another half-example. To be true to superhero form she should be the human ideal form even when her powers are not manifesting. But poor Pixel, she only becomes the ?human? idealized body when she isn’t even in a human body. Sexualized by her powers, but mainly for furries. So much for consistent writing. Or even good writing. The art is what keeps me here, not the writing, which is fairly and consistently sub-par.
The only other example of this we have is Heatwave, who does have the human ideal form when not manifesting but who ?grows a few inches? when manifesting. Here’s the cast page description:
It’s a fairly crappy distinction, but Heatwave changes, but already has the perfect body of supers (but gets more *ahem* fuller *ahem* so bring on tha titties!) despite undergoing some fairly irrelevant physical changes when she pops out her superpowers.
“Pixel is another half-example. To be true to superhero form she should be the human ideal form even when her powers are not manifesting. But poor Pixel, she only becomes the ?human? idealized body when she isn’t even in a human body.”
Oberon, I literally describe how Pixel SUPPORTS my theory, because when she’s human, and is NOT an idealized form, she has no superpowers. But when she’s a werejaguar, she has laser claws as a superpower, and IS an idealized form. Being a super and having an idealized physical form seem to go hand in hand.
We know this is not just ‘furry’ stuff because we’ve seen OTHER werecreatures who do NOT have idealized forms, like the werehoneybadger (Clover) or the were-hare (Kat, I think). Neither of them are ‘idealized forms’ and neither of them have superpowers (aside from standard werecreature abilities obviously, which is not a ‘super’ superpower, it’s a werecreature power).
You mean the same (or similar) interface Sydney brings up when she activates her Sphere-Grid? o_O
Yes I mentioned that there might be some sort of tie between Krona’s powers and Sydney’s orbs. Like possibly that Krona’s race (whatever they are) could have been the ones that CREATED the orbs. Or her race and the race that created the orbs could both tie into the same ‘universal hacking deep code.’
In celsius or in Kelvin would be great for non-american audience 1 000 F° is about 538 C° ( lead became liquid at 327.5 C° )
If only there were some device that could convert measurements.
Don’t try to appease the evil conglomerate that is trying to take away our arcane units of measurement. It will only get get worse. If you give them 2.54 centimeters they will take 1.61 kilometers.
Never! My evil SI conglomerate would never design to use a conversion factor of 63360 !
They’d take either 0.15782828 miles, or 1.5782828 miles, as proper powers-of-10 conversions dictate
Now, for extra credit, tell me what movie has a song that is answered by that conversion factor.
Neither my movie-fu nor my search-fuvis strong enough. No extra credit for me :-(
(I am curious as to the answer though!)
Groan…
I missed the alien grenade detail entirely, and thought all the fire going on was a result of Heatwave’s temp-control. In the interests of feedback:
I missed the detail primarily because I thought the grenade panel was a shot of another alien’s head. The grenade has the same flesh tone as the being it’s attached to, making it not visually separate from the creature it’s attached to. You’d think the red bits would do it, but apparently not.
To fix this, my recommendation is you either make the tech visually distinct from the creature proper, have the alien holding the grenade so it is obviously equipment, or replace your sound effect with one of the Ka-pants! style descriptors. Perhaps Ominous-overload (or something better)?
Rather than ominous beeping (R&M!) The delayed action ordinance should ♬.
All of my evil world-domination weapons (at least the sub-sonic ones) play the Pacman death sound effect. It’s a great way to keep your enemies off-balance.
All that’s really needed is an extremely thin white box around the thing in panel 3 that is the exact same shape as panel 5.
Three thin white lines linking the two is optional.
Somone check the clock, because I believe its go time!
Should adjust her conversation to “Before your people get slaughtering them……..as we want some as well you know”
Should Sydney get into the mix?
There is a reason why on Earth is considered a death world. They don’t take kindly to being attacked.
Nuclear armed maniacs, but the sex tourism is great…
It’s their most redeeming feature.
>but it’s a fair bet that anything that’s designed to explode isn’t something you want to subject to a few thousand degrees if you can avoid it
See, that’s the thing – (as far as I remember) – there is a whole class of chemicals that burn extremely slowly, disintegrate into inert sludge on heating, or almost entirely ambivalent to extreme temperature variations. Hit it with the hammer, though…
In all fairness, although simple rapid hyper-heating should do the trick of… disarming the thing in question, for a certain measure, kinetic impact of Hearwave’s blast can trigger the explosion even if the stuff in question is of the described above variance. But then again, so can the Stalwart’s THOOM, and far more easely, so…
There are many plastic explosives, particularly those used to create the implosions for nuclear weapons, that need a blasting cap to actually get them to detonate, but will only burn if exposed to flame. In the case of the shaped charges for nuclear weapons, they were designed that way so that a fire might cause a big mess, but would not cause a nuclear reaction.
Just wanted to mention that the surface of our sun is about 6000-6500 degrees. So those are pretty good shields.
Carbon subnitride + ozone can give you about the same here, on Erf. Solar corona is ~1*10^6K. Surface of our sun is not that hot.
‘Not that hot’ is relative. Do we currently have anything that can withstand 6000-6500 degrees?
Point.
Can’t name something of top of my head without lowering to “that guy” standards, and mentioning blatant ablatives.
Also, I’ll join the chorus – congratulation on the first nine rings!
Here’s for another sixty, so all the ancient relics waiting for the next installment of the story could be able to cosplay necromancers by saying “Nice”. *clink*
Along with the nine rings there should be seven rings and three rings and one ring.
But, as we all know, that is just a mnemonic for asëa aranion dosage, so one would not OD on stuff.
I mean, have you seen someone who takes nine rings of athelas daily? Pitiful display, that – they looks like living dead, methheads are less disgusting.
And even with seven – it burns person down to basic cognitive circuits, just enough to retain creativity and passion towards one single thing, of which they obsess constantly to an unhealthy degree. Yes, it spurs creative juices – but the price of it… It literally turns you into a meatgolem, focused on one thing and one thing only. I mean, just look what happened to Sons of Feanor – bah!
More importantly, anything more than one ring daily inevitably burns out your will to power, and makes you docile and complacent.
So – no, no more than one ring per day.
I think she has Max for the wrong faction there. This gonna be one huge “Oh, shit” moment for the baddies.
Abort abort! For the tentacled love of Chtulhu, RETREAT!
Repent!
Again, why would punching them work if ballistics are completely blocked and energy is very well defended against?
Is it a function of mass? (Then they can throw big things or ram them) Surface area? (Larger rounds, nets, foam, etc)
Lower velocity?
Whatever it is, it changes things and effects combat in a rather important way.
Most importantly though, it has to actually come across in-story, so people reading just the content itself know what and why.
Whichever thing you settle on is a limitation for the characters to work around, but the audience has to see it and it has to be consistent for its kind.
I am guessing the ballistic shields work up to a certain level of kinetic energy. Anything above that, and it just buckles.
Stalwart can hit really hard, apparently.
Defending against a high speed impact does not automatically imply defending against a low speed high pressure impact. If the shield functions like a non-newtonian fluid then it wouldn’t.
Absorbing kinetic energy does not automatically free the impactee from the consequences of Newton’s first law. If the shield just blocks the impact then it will send the shield and its contents flying backwards at a = F/m
That’s what happened when Sydney got hit by the kaiju explody beams while she was flying. Her shield got tossed around like a pinball in the tentacle beam barrage.
Dear me. I just realized that we’re likely going to be in this fight until after the new year in Real Life. Given how long fights in Grrl Power tend to take, I mean.
I’m not sure how to feel about that, given how much I began to loathe the Vehemence fight once it passed the 6 month mark :)
As long as it is entertaining, BRING IT ON!!
The only time personally got bored with the Restaurant Rumble, was reading the comments about how bored the readers were and could we get back to the daily stuff (which then turned into “this daily stuff is boring, when is the next fight?”)
I’ve never found the daily stuff boring. It’s one of the best things about the comic.
Yeah, me neither, butt there have been plenty who have, and weren’t shy to mention it
Find that on far too many webics actually: “LFG”, “YAFGC”, “Grrl Power”…
Sure, they can say that they are bored, butt they tend to be extremely rude and act entitled about it (not saying that that is the case here, butt just came across it in both “LFG” and “YAFGC”)
True, but personally, the Vehemence fight was one of my favorite parts in the entire comic. Especialy refreshing in that Vehemence wasn’t just a hulking brawler but a strategic mastermind as well.
I don’t know. To me he WAS a hulking brawler who relied almost entirely on Deus Ex Machinae powers that he kept pulling out of nowhere, that even he didnt know he had. Maybe I’d have liked him if it did not last for a year.
I started reading the strip after the Vehemence fight. While I recognized that it was a very long scene only now is it sinking in just how long it would have taken to go through in real life. It took over 1 YEAR?!? Geez! When that sort of thing started to happen with The Order of the Stick I would just stop watching it and come back to check up on it every 5 or so weeks just to see if the story was over. Of course Rich publishes his stuff a LOT slower.
I can see myself taking a holiday from Grrl Power rather than following an excruciatingly long fight for months on end. That way I’d be able to enjoy the whole thing in a blow rather than painfully drawing it out. Heck, I’ve done it before. During the Vampire/Council thing, if I recall correctly.
To each their own, of course. :)
Yes, the Vehemence/Parking Lot fight was almost Dragonball Z in how long it took :).
This is why RSS feeds/readers were invented – I care about very few blogs/comics/etc enough to remember to check on them. This way when the occasional (e.g. OOTS) page drops, it’s a pleasant surprise instead of weeks or months of disappointment.
I’m way too into this comic to wait. I even tend to read (and comment on) it while waiting for the court docket to get to me in the mornings.
GrrlPower drops in my RSS within minutes of it posting. It depends on the RSS reader and the CMS a given site is using, but most of them automatically update their feeds as part of releasing each new post, and the readers typically poll for new content within an hour; more often for popular feeds.
I probably wouldn’t have noticed if it was in a book.
Fine by me; I have popcorn to last through then :thumbsup:
If the aliens have ballistic shields but they can still be punched I guess the things work like the shields from Dune. High velocity things like bullets are stopped cold but low velocity stabs with knives get through.
They may function akin to damper fields from MoO, or Shadow Field from WH40K. Energy is drained from any object/thing passing through the boundary – so the things with not enough energy would just stop, drop, or slow to more or less “safe” levels: exempli gratia, megawatt laser would lose most of the beam power and would become nothing more than a simple flashlight, while terawatt laser would punch right through, although in a slightly weakened form.
A shield might not cancel the kinetic energy or momentum of a high-speed projectile but instead disperse it. That’s how bullet resistant body armor works after all, spread the highly concentrated energy over a large area. But body armor won’t help if you get hit by a semi truck at 65 mph.
Which brings to WH40K Thunderhammers actually being… realistic, let’s put it that way, CC weapons – powerarmour will protect you from piercing impactors and radiation, but a heavy blunt object is a heavy blunt object. And then heavy blunt object hits you with a giant maul…
The more I hear about WH40K, the more I want to get involved in something with it. Sounds like a really fascinating mythos. Like Starcraft meets Starship Troopers.
Considering Starcraft based the three factions off of 40K in the first place that makes sense. Terrans=Space MarinesAdeptus Astartes, Zerg=Tyranids, Protoss=Eldar/Aerdari.
Down to Protoss splitting in Light (which is not Good) and Shadow sides, with Amon cosplaying Slaanesh while moonlighting as the Outsider, and xel’naga being an ersatz of the Old Ones with a bit of Necrontyr thrown in. Too many similarities, but enough differences to be considered two separate universes.
If you’ve ever wished you could make your D&D miniatures LARP, then Warhammer 40K is for you.
WH40K itself was created as a mix of Dune, Starship Troopers, and Starchild (which is never mentioned, because no one remembers Frederik Pohl); melted, stirred, and molded by the British mentality and worldview of 80s. It transformed and changed through many iteration since, but the core remains more or less intact, with amount of political satire going from YES to non-existent, and amount of cheese going from Sheckley to one hundred million trillion gadzillion percents plus one. Because memes, apparently.
If you suddenly would catch an urge to dive into the lore side, Luetin09 on the ‘Tube has a series of pretty lengthy flicks on a spectra of themes, including introductory primers for newcomers.
Then there is one Remleiz of Adeptus Podcastus fame, who asks profound lore-related questions like “Could the Emperor be remade entirely out of cyberdongs?”, and “Do T’au women prefer Human men?”, and then answers them despite all the screams and pleadings; certain Warhamster of Arch, who not so long ago finished (finally) his series on the Siege of Vraks (though most of his earlier videos are more or less outdated in regards to current lore); and many others.
Then there is TTS, or – as it full designation goes – If the Emperor had a text-to-speech device, but that little thingy is for NG+ strictly due to consisting almost exclusively of in-jokes and obscure references. It is quite good, though. Quite good.
So, in the case you would finally succumb to foul temptations of Warp – good luck, and good hunting.
Its a common trope used for force fields. They can handle “high speed kinetics” just fine, but something slow (in comparison) like a simple knuckle sandwich they’re useless against. IE “our guns are useless, but a simple primitive club does wonders.”
Largely because, while the field can stop a bullet (or laser or whatever energy particle fired at it), melee uses kinetic energy, and while it may still not penetrate the impact area is larger (or, in some cases, it is because they move slower and fields are designed to protect from high-speed attacks)
Like in Stargate SG-1 with the Go’a’uld’s personal force fields being capable of stopping laser blasts and P-90 fire, but not a 9mm or a thrown knife.
These are just cannon fodder. The big dangerous enemies have yet to show up.
and despite obvious physical similarities we can’t say for certain they are directly connected, accecdotal evidence suggest thanks to Dabbler and Cora that either the big baddies are something new they never saw before and took out Alar, or are something old…or Stygian energy corruption has a certain look to it and they aren’t related at all.
I love the frowns and the eyebrows on everyone on this page. It’s time to get down to business! :)
o/~ Let’ s get down to business, to defeat the Fel.
They came for a battle, but we’ll give them Hell!
They’re the baddest bunch we’ve ever met
but you can be before we’re through,
buddy we’ll turn them all… into glue!
Heatwave cooks off grenades, with her fire within
Stalwart punches them out, and the fight begins
They’re a super-powered hero lot,
and the Fel haven’t got a clue,
buddy we’ll turn them all… into glue! o/~
/* applauds! */
o/~ It’s serious, as, the dark side, of Max’ booooooot! o/~
Can’t get the Mulan song ‘I’ll Make a Man Out of You’ out of my head now :)
Hey, at least it cleared out the Dreidel song from last week.
Hey I’m not complaining. Mulan is one of my favorite Disney movies, next to Moana.
Still cautiously optimistic for the live-action Mulan, the animated version was fantastic.
On an unrelated note, the social media response to Disney casting a Chinese actress was ridiculous, especially given the decades of whitewashing/Westernizing all their other films. A black actress in The Little Mermaid makes total sense *in context in the Caribbean* and was a great move; shoehorning one into midieval China would’ve been unjustifiable.
Wait, what? Apart from Sebastian, TLM is set in Scandinavia
Speaking of live-action Disney movies, have you heard they are fucking over “Lady and the Tramp”?
Oh geez, a live action animal movie? That sounds disturbing. {finds trailer} Oh good, not that kind of live action, but I’m still thinking that looks awful. And yes, I need to go lecture some kids on how much better things used to be, and/or chase them off my lawn.
The original Anderson TLM story is, yes, but the animated version has some pretty strong Caribbean influence overall – popular fan theory analysis based on the (very) mixed clues includes (among others) the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the Baltic Sea, but few internal pointers to Scandinavian waters. Disney is wildly inconsistent with its historical contexts though, and TLM is no different.
In recent years though there’s been a fun and growing theory that all Disney movies take place in the the same universe and even around the same period, e.g Ariel’s sunken ship is the one Anna & Elsa’s parents were on – while sailing to Rapunzel’s wedding. But they actually escaped the wreck onto an island, where their infant son became Tarzan. Etc etc, it gets pretty involved. But it does draw TLM back to northern Europe.
In the larger real-world though, mermaid lore actually has some pretty strong ties to Africa and the Caribbean; in the later case that may be European influence, I haven’t gone that far down the rabbit hole though.
In short, if Mulan does not have the song ‘I’ll Make a Man Out of You’ in it, then it’s not Mulan. It’s like…. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or something. :)
I am not even remotely looking forward to the live action Mulan. There are not going to be any songs in it, and there is not going to be any Mushu in it.
Also, while I’m sure she’ll be a good singer and everything, I do not think a black actress made sense for The Little Mermaid, if we are being frank, since The Little Mermaid is a Dutch story, which uses Roman/Greek characters (ie, King Neptune/Poseidon, and mermaids themselves are a greek creation in stories from the Odyssey). The ONLY character in the Little Mermaid from the Carribean is Sebastian the Crab, who is given a Jamaican accent by Disney (although he is red, since he is a crab). And I can have a suspension of disbelief there because King Poseidon controls ALL the creatures of the seven seas. But no other animals in the Little Mermaid have a Jamaican accent EXCEPT for Sebastian.
But the story does NOT take place in the Carribean. There are no princes with kingdoms in the Carribean in the 1800s. Mermaid lore has no ties to Africa – it has ties to the Greeks, the Romans, and the Dutch. Mami Wata, which is the argument people use to try to claim mermaids are from African lore, was a water spirit, not actually a mermaid. The Mandao are also evil water spirits, NOT mermaids.
It’s a moot point for me though. I’m not a fan of a lot of live action versions of Disney movies in general. I like the cartoons, regardless of the Disney Princess (although my favorite Disney Princesses are Moana and Mulan, who are ironically the two who are NOT princesses).
I didnt like the live action Lion King. The live action Beauty and the Beast left out a lot of the story making it a disjointed mess. And the live action 1001 Dalmatians was just… really bad. Some things are better as cartoons than live action. Case in point, the DC animated movies are MUCH better than the DC live action movies. Not even a comparison.
I’m old school.
But my favorite Disney movie is relatively new (if you are as old as I am) and doesn’t have musical numbers (although it has Scatman Crothers):
The Journey Of Natty Gann.
You might look it up.
Everyone is expecting Halo to Pew-Pew the alien craft to bits.
A better first step would be to pick up the weapon we saw in 754 and Light Bee
(without teleportation) on to the ship and let her intangible projection get shot
at by security.
Rule of funny says the persons and equiptment behind her will be important.
Nice.
Sydney just doing recon, instead of PP, would be a switch.
As they say: “Friendly fire – ISN’T !”
Honestly, destroying this ship here would be bad. At best, you turn ArcSwat’s HQ into a Superfund site for a couple generations. At worst, well they’re talking anti-matter in an atmosphere.
Best get it into far orbit, then peel it like a grape.
I’ve always thought squishing something like a grape was a weird analogy.
I suspect that this might be the incident that gets Anvil to speak of her as “The big guns” as seen in the first few pages.
So… Throat mic collars?
No idea why that replied here instead of a new thread..
They aren’t in uniform. Doesn’t look like anyone (that we see) was on active duty.
The boys’ necks tend to be too thick for the collars anyway, and the only one we saw wearing one (Hiro) had a traditional half-collar
Grenade fillers? Mostly PETN or Composition B these days…
I really hope that Stalwart has his suits made by the resident super-tailor. Otherwise his nice duds are going to be in shreds shortly. (which may be fine for certain members of the audience).
That is why he didn’t liquefy them with a punch. Goo stains can be so hard to get out.
Torn up costumes and involuntary nudity is part of the job for a super.