Grrl Power #876 – Mercs and mayhem
So it looks like word of Maxima’s stunt with the Fel has spread. I guess I could leave you guys speculating as to why aliens want to kidnap and auction her off, but… I mean, come on. It’s that or some Ferengi wants to press his Latinum into her Gold. Ew.
Eeyuh. I just gave myself the willies.
You do have to admit, it’s pretty ballsy trying to capture someone who one-armed a battlecruiser. But “Fire Third Eye Demon Thing” whose race I have yet to name (see previous appearance of a different girl) is right. Someone out there would probably pay a lot to control/study/recruit Max.
I know I’ve already gone on at length about the economics of post scarcity societies where only energy, information and entertainment would be of much value, so when “FTEDT” says “billions” that’s just a convenient translation to benefit you guys. She’s really talking about lots of energon chips, dessert schematics for food replicators, and digital files for Game of Thrones, Dexter, True Blood and Heroes, all minus their finals seasons of course.
Ray sometimes has some semi-laudable aspects. If he didn’t, he’d never have anyone to regret making certain mistakes with him. He’s normally sleazy, usually an idiot, but sometimes he’s a hot idiot. Thus; mistakes. That usually only happens when he can keep his mouth shut for more than two minutes at a time, so it doesn’t happen often.
Take this scene for example. If Dabbler and Cora didn’t hear him mutter the “without cutting me in” line, his intervention with the mercs might seem… a little macho. Like, in a good way. But also aggravating, since he’s butting in on them doing their job. Well, on Dabbler doing her job, but Cora’s never said no to adding downrange ordnance to whatever Dabbler is shooting at. If they did hear him… we don’t know about Cora’s hearing, but we do know Dabbler has, well, huge ears. So, if they did hear him, then the “I’m disgusted with you and will you put on a shirt you heaving pile of man-beast fine but I’m only showering with you to conserve water so keep your hands mostly to yourself.” possibility opens up. As I said. Mistakes.
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Well, I guess Ray is just chock FULL of surprises…
Yeah I did not expect him to have any business ethic let alone one that makes him defend someone if he was not cut in on the Shady deal against them to begin with.
The market causes a lot of untrustworthy types to be highly trustworthy. Now if Cosmos was only doing this once [and didn’t think Max would the “suitably grateful”], he might well not be so heroic. But there is a big old galaxy out there, which just has to be full of tourists that like to “rough it”. Cosmos can likely [over]charge them for a year or more. But if those tourists get the idea there is real danger involved, they will stay away, and Cosmos won’t get to cheat them. Lots of incentive$ to be the hero.
The greatest surprise of all is that this was all staged.
The bounty hunters, paid actors to make Ray Cosmos look good to the local authorities when he “rescues” Earth’s most famous superhero.
Ray Cosmos’ own powers, nothing more than holographic illusion, easily dispelled by the first credible threat he encounters. By which I mean, any living being not being paid to go along with the show.
Well, not that great a surprise, really.
Did you just watch Spiderman far from home? Same plot :P
Or Mr. Satan of Dragon Ball.
To be fair to Mister Satan from Dragonball, he is legitimately one of the strongest humans in the setting who can’t use ki. (He, fair and square, won the martial arts tournament when no ki-user was participating.) In a setting where there was no such thing as ki, he’d legitimately be a credible opponent. The problem he has is that the setting DOES have ki, with all of the implications that carries.
The only time he pretended to have a power he didn’t really have was with Android 18, and she coaxed him into that deliberately. (It was her idea, her plan, etc.) He did claim credit for achievements of Goku/Gohan, but largely because they didn’t want the credit themselves.
Plus, he has legitimate claims to saving the world; it was Mister Satan who managed to win over Majin Buu, and it was him who helped rally the world. He is, legitimately, a good figure and an icon to in-universe martial artists, for good reason. He’s just also a normal human in a setting with literal gods and their literal world-destroying energy powers.
Well, no, but that’s not a bad parallel to what I had in mind. That movie was a mess, though, so hopefully DaveB will keep things more focused than that if he decides to take the story this route.
Sounds A. like a expensive and risky stunt, b. strange that he mutters “without cutting me in” without making it hearable for others if that’s the case.
Well, if it was staged Ray Cosmos would’ve probably funded it with the money he earned from transporting the alien tourists. I won’t claim that he’s using the money from his ventures wisely-this scene can probably serve as a perfect example of that, since I doubt Maxima is in on the plot- unless this one’s another actor and the real Maxima shows up later to Ray Cosmos’ chagrin. I’d say the line “without cutting me in” is deliberate self-characterization- he’s not trying to cast himself as a perfect hero, just someone who’s “good enough” for the situation. Part of why it feels staged to me might be the format, though- realistically, the bounty hunters wouldn’t call out their plan to everyone in earshot and Ray Cosmos wouldn’t just loom and say “Let us renegotiate your travel voucher” if he was trying to stop them. However, I do think this way is funnier and gives us a better idea of what’s happening than just running through the plot without the characters explaining their motivation.
a. He would have to bribe somebody in getting a certain conviction for high treason, smuggling, illegal weapon ownership, slavery and breaking a country’s sovereignty. Money can buy anything, but a certain life sentence with a risk of getting everybody you care about wiped out tends to be pretty expensive. Even so expensive that I think a sleezy entrepreneur can’t afford it.
b. he already doesn’t play the perfect hero, since his first line isn’t heroic either. “How dare you involve my tour ship in this heinous crime.” As a motive he doesn’t give: “to save others” or something like that, but the risk it puts on his business and as thing to help he doesn’t offer the person, but the system, which makes him less likeable.
c. I’ve three possible explanations for the over the top acting you point out.
The first is: we’re dealing with a space Palistine/Israël situations. Two groups hate each other very much and are depended on a comparable public, so they’re trying to bring each other in discredit and are willing to sacrifice everything to take the other down.
The second is: stupid space pirates. The smart people who don’t announce their plans probably wouldn’t have shown their face at all and especially not to two space adventurers, so we’re dealing with the lower side of the criminal spectrum. Ray cosmos is theatric to entertrain his public with a target he already knows has lost.
The third is: You’re right for the wrong reasons. Ray cosmos staged it for the entertainment of his guests. He breaks so much laws, since his spaceship is proof he doesn’t care about any laws not written by his government(it also breaks the travel laws of the Xenovarchy, so written instead of enforced).
They’re better off without her.
Now she owes HIM a favor!
Will you just fucking die. She isn’t the problem, YOU are.
The bad guys ARE better of without Maxima as a prisoner
Yeah, the nanosecond they end the stasis on her, she would obliterate whoever thought they could hold her.
I am wondering if the field will hold …
and hoping it won’t ;)
Stasis implies that Maxima isn’t experiencing Time, so there’s no time passing for her to do anything in.
(Oh. Super Speed. No. I think she’s missed her opportunity to use it.)
Heh heh… Unnamed alien trying to snatch the SECOND most powerful Terran… within feet of the first!
The pod that they want to transport her in will be stasis, but there is no statement saying that the gun is stasis. Also, we don’t know how the gun works. Is it full temporal stasis or just a temporal inhibitor…or just a quantum inhibitor? Or maybe just an electromagnetic restraint. Many possible ways to completely “freeze” somebody, and many of them can be overcome with enough physical force.
In Panel 1 she calls it a stasis beam. So yes, it’s a statement gun. … stasis projector? Stasis something.
Stasis Qua?
oh ya..there…missed that bubble
But again, what kind or level of stasis are we talking here?
Considering her Zero point TK Defense shield that may also block the beam, this might not effect her just her immediate surroundings. Potentially.
Definitely something she could fight.
Could very easily be like absolute zero is impossible to reach, but you can get very very very close. Her cognition and reflexes weren’t cranked up yet, so it may take her a few seconds to shift her power points into super speed instead of a few nanoseconds
Anyway, we’ll see what DaveB has in mind for her. Badass-stasis-field-breaking, taking advantage of the split second when they plan to transition her from the handheld projector to the chamber, someone disabling the handheld projector, or something else.
I’m interested that she said “the stasis beam” not “a stasis beam” – implies heavily that she’s working with someone who knew about and expected the use of said beam. Perhaps whoever is tackling Cosmos, or someone else
@[polerbear]:
While “garamm!” might be a substitute for “goddamn!”, there’s also the possibility that it’s the NAME of the 2nd-to-last panel’s unknown attacker.
Even if the Esteemed_Author’s choice of typeface allowed for upper-&-lowercase letters, in this case it could be either a proper-name or just the start of a 1-word sentence.
We’ll just have to wait-&-see what we can learn on Monday, from the next page.
From her expression, it is clearly a callout to her confederate with the grey tail.
It seems that it’s probably the name of the second alien that tackled Ray Cosmos, Profiteer Protector.
this entire string of conversation is assuming its a chrono-lock stasis projector and not just a hand held tractor beam or a kinetic thief stasis projector.
Chrono lock seems a little too advanced for some handheld by mercs who want to sell a person. I would bet more on it being closer to a kinetic thief *preventing motion by stopping kinetic output* but given it is holding her in position it just being a hand held tractor beam that stops external motion of the target object while holding it in space relative to the source of the beam seems a bit more likely.
-which would mean her internal works are unaffected *like the occupants of a space ship aren’t frozen while the ship is in a tractor beam*, so her mind and organs are still functioning as normal.
So while story wise some may prefer she be assisted, Achilles and Sydney both seem likely candidates to disrupt any beam; given even weakened she had enough strength to overpower a giant death golem; if she can shift her powers internally, either strength or speed should be enough to move in and break free from a tractor beam simply by exerting more force than its power supply can handle; and it is a handheld version.
Give her a moment to crank speed up to max, and she’ll quite possibly be moving normally even with the stasis field…
If it is an actual stasis field and not some cheap knockoff, Maxima will never have that moment. Not until the stasis ends.
Beam, not field. Her permanent TK shield might have some effect blocking it. An AOE field on the other hand likely that the pod uses might effect inside fields/shields, depending on technology.
I’d suggest strength rather than speed if the surrounding matter even if it’s just air is in stasis and refusing to move.
Beam/field is a meaningless distinction. The word to focus on here is stasis. Or are you going to claim that the “stasis pod” that the aliens are bringing up to presumably provide a more permanent stasis than the handheld weapon FTEDT is wielding should also be treated separately from beam or field just because it has yet another adjective associated with it?
Stasis itself only works if it’s applied.
Shoot someone? Bullet proof jacket. Matter projectile? Halo or Max’s shields. They aren’t actually hit.
Energy beam? Suitable energy shields. Energy projectile ??? Could be blocked, be partially effective or no effect depending.
Bomb? Bomb disposal suit or Max + Halos shields. (AOE)
Use subspace to explode all the air in an area? Max might survive. Tech depending, like teleporting, Halos shield might stop it. (Also AOE)
Nothing is guaranteed. Read/watch more sci fi or real science. There are actual theories covering most Sci Fi. It’s part of the reason I like Some Star Trek Series depending on the knowledge of the writers.
Wouldn’t be the first time a Sci fi character got themselves out of stasis when it was applied either to them or the area around them if they had means to block it.
Screw you. I hope she Does break the stasis field and proves she’s even better than people thought she was. I’m sick of people saying she needs to be humbled and/or screwed into submission. Bunch of virgin nazis need to be gelded and thrown back into the garbage where they all belong.
Adam, if that reply was meant for Jagged, you misread him. If it was meant for someone else, you misplaced your comment.
Dude. Chill.
And I don’t think I’ve heard anybody suggest she needs a man’s penis to humble her. We’re here to read a superhero comic, not a Romcom. The reason people want to see her confront a physical limitation/overpowering obstacle is that an invincible hero can be boring. If she has limits, if she has weaknesses, then the dramatic tension is increased and we become more eager to see her triumph over the adversity. We LIKE Maxima, and we want to see her achieve triumphs against enemies so powerful that the outcome was in doubt.
Take a chill pill, dude. Maxima can’t be 100% unbeatable or there is no tension. It’s just good writing to have her not *always* being in control of the situation, and this does affect her pre-established “weakness” which is surprise.
It sounds like the ‘stasis field’ is currently being maintained by the ‘gun’ FTEDT is holding. She’s calling for a ‘stasis pod’, which, I’m guessing, will keep her in stasis without the need for the gun. Until then, simply knocking the gun out of her hand will probably disrupt the stasis field.
Yaaaay, called it!! Everyone was saying “portal behind Max” but I pointed out she was being lit up too, so it was happening TO her. And I was right! Yay me!
I don’t get this very often, so let me have this…
Please…
Daniel the Human just gave me a nice scratch on top of my head. Yay me…
Enjoy it. Stasis made the most sense since Max cut off mid rant/beating/explaining local social norms.
I guess Ray uses Cosmic Venom hence the name Cosmos. Also I’m waiting to see if Maxima is able to break out at the stasis beam on her own
Seconded, I am willing to bet Max’s unique condition will allow her of the Stasis Beam if not resist the effects more than normal.
Granted if she was in full Def mode I a even willing to bet she could ignore it completely.
Also don’t forget, The Mighty Halo is pretty close by, besides Achilles, Max, Cora & Mr. Amorphous.
Yeah not accounting for FOUR of the OTHER most powerful supers on the planet was a bit of a tactical error on their part.
To be fair, their pre-heist briefing probably didn’t even include Halo since she wasn’t there when the ship was destroyed.
Wait, really? These morons think they can sell her off to the highest bidder? Ha! For what? As a decoration or slave fighter? Oh god. Imagine Maxima waking up and finding some alien mob boss slime ball trying to give her orders. Fucking hilarious!
Well, we know from Deus that Max was doused with extraterrestrial ‘geode water’. And it’s a big galaxy, so someone might know just what exactly that was and could be interested in taking Max apart to see if they can replicate it.
It’s probably Nth tech so I bet they could not.
Which doesn’t mean no one would try
Well… that’s the problem of whoever them sell her off to, now isn’t it? They just have to make sure they get paid in full and then leave before their customer turns the field off.
I’m more inclined to facepalm that they thought they could just waltz in there and take her. Stasis beam or not, there was a whole bunch more people fighting the Fel, and doing rather well, and most of them are right there. And they thought they could just grab Maxima right in front of them.
Anybody thinking they can enslave somebody who oneshot a fell battlecruiser with a single, unarmed hand either only has a desire for a new paper weight or is absolutely insane. No way anybody can risk letting her out of a stasis field for even a femptosecond.
Hey, all that matters to these mercs is that SOMEONE will pay mega-mega spacebucks for a Maxima in stasis. None of their business what they decide to do with her afterwards. They’re just fulfilling a demand.
And really, the other humans are no big threat. They’re pre-FTL, they don’t even have fusion or stasis fields yet. Buncha primitives. It’s a simple, Walk-In-Wow-The-Natives-And-Steal-TheirMacGuffin job. What could go wrong?
-Sydney flying out of her rainbow bridge- Heard you were talking shit
They don’t know about that. Soon they will
That is what I was implying, but ya, I really hope Dave lets Sydney mess with them
*sigh* Apparently space criminals are as stupid as human criminals. Pulling crap like this out in the open? Dumb dumb dumb dumb. And puting Max in a stasis field merely delays the inevitable major disaster that will occur when she gets free. At all levels a badly thought out plan. Especially not cutting Ray into the action.
The first rule of any ‘grab-n-go’ crime is having an escape plan ready. Obviously they had some planning, since someone has a
Poké Ballstasis pod ready. But… where’s their ship? Ray seems like the kind of guy who expects and plans for treachery, so stealing his ship probably isn’t going to work.Is it cloaked? Do they have transporters? Is this all some elaborate double bluff to see what
Earth’s Defendersare really capable of? Is this actually one of Arianna’s media stunts?Agreed, this is some terrible planning. The dialog is clearly exposition, which is more fun to read in context than as a flashback or narrator box, but not having extraction and a stasis pod already prepped for instant delivery is pretty amateur. Clearly she isn’t supervillain material, but I’m not sure she even clears the bar for decent henchman material.
Nah, she’s no henchman…At most she’s a minion (not the annoying yellow ones) but I get more of a mere hired thug/cannonfodder vibe.
Ray hides the keys in the passenger side mirror flap, not the driver side. No one ever looks in the passenger side.
Not dumb. Ignorant.
If we go down the “News of Maxi shooting down the Fel ship” line, exactly who knows (or cares) about Halo? Or Hiro? Or… Let’s face it, even Dabbles is not that well known in many circles, and nor is Cora.
Badly thought plan? Well, FTEDT does have a backup actor, so some attempt at forward thinking…
HOWEVER, “No plan ever survives contact with the enemy”. So what happens when Hiro flies in and swoops off Maxi, thus breaking the stasis field? Can we get Achilles on-site quickly? We’ll find out if he’s immune to the stasis field!
Ummm. Does Halo have her trusty FN Five-SeveN? To intimidate FTEDT with? (This is NOT a PewPew time.)
What is ftedt?
“Fire Third Eye Demon Thing”. Not the most graceful way to refer to the alien race in question, but it (AND the acronym) are how DabeB himself chose to refer to her in this page’s Author’s Notes.
It’s generally a good idea to read a new page’s Author’s Notes before venturing into the comments, because most of us have likely done so.
Halo could just repeat her Vehemence Debuff…block the stasis with her shield orb.
Or just crush the gun with the lighthook. Either way, Sydney could end this fight rather quickly, if given the the opportunity.
Gun, arm, everything from the toes up… I just realized precisely how murdery the Lighthook can get. It can get really, really murdery.
Imagine wrapping a string around a block of wet clay and then pulling it straight. That’s basically the Lighthook on nonsuper flesh.
There’s a reason I say it’s Halo’s third most lethal option. Two being the Pew Pew Orb and Number one being Flying into someone at top speed with the shield.
yeah a 16 ton weight limit on squishy mortal flesh is deadly, a slow moving forklift with less than half that can sever your arm in a pinch point.
that fire guy in the parkinglot fight got lucky just getting the bones on one side of his body broken by Sydney throwing him into the ground with the light hook.
Cora has enough face recognition as someone who has saved the entire f*ing Fracture, twice, that she is recognized by a beat cop. Although I’m of the opinion that anyone who saved an entire environment sentients live in/on, twice, should have face recognition with about 78% of the population.
That’s not to say that our erstwhile Maxnappers live on the Fracture, but hell, someone who saved a huge place you know about, twice, is still pretty high up there in name recognition.
If you don’t think so, just keep in mind that Maxima clearly has name and face recognition with these perps, and all she has done is take out one measly Fel carrier. Cora has been doing whatever it is she and her crew do for enough years that she’s had time to constantly refit her stock spacecraft, and save the Fracture. Twice.
Cora was recognised as someone who had saved the Fracture, by an officer of the Fracture’s authorities. There are a lot of habitats out there, and probably a lot of ‘local hero’ type stories. I would not be at all surprised if Cora does have very high recognition among the population of the Fracture, especially since she appears young enough for those saves to be relatively recent.
But I would not expect those same incidents to win her much attention in a world that does not have many direct dealings with the Fracture. Even if the residents of Argo are aware that someone called Cora Zylstra saved a far-off habitat twice in the past 20 years, that does not mean that they would recognise her on the street. As far as they’re concerned, she’s just one more story among half a galaxy’s worth of news feeds.
OF COURSE the space criminals that are trying a quick grab of made-the-front-page-Super-Max are idiots.
I’m sure there are some smart space criminals plotting the same thing. It’s a big galaxy, after all. But the smart space criminals aren’t as fast. The dumb space criminals just grabbed a stasis beam and a stasis pod and hopped on the first ship to Earth. Meanwhile the smart space criminals are recruiting an elite ensemble of 11 and going through three space-months of planning with detailed contingency plans, dozens of prepositioned assets, lots of fancy space-gear, carefully synchronized space-watches, and every intention of watching the dumb space criminals to learn from their mistakes.
Now I want to see that movie. Spacer’s Eleven – A heist, the galaxy has never seen since the death star’s plans got stolen…
probably be part of Guardians of the Galaxy 3. For some reason they did heists in some of the comics.
So he’s both Captain Sternn AND Hanover Fiste.
Ah, dang, you beat me to it.
I don’t get up that early. The fun was in seeing how far I could scroll down before someone made the reference. Now Cheap Trick is playing in my head.
Hannover Fisk!
I’m wondering how the field actually works. If Max is still conscious, can she break out of it by maxing her strength?
She can probably leave by maxing her speed, but she’ll need a very stretched out half-second to realize she must do it
Now that was more than usual stupid…
If that stasis field somehow ‘negates’ time passing it would mean that it’s impossible to take any measurements inside it, so anyone who wants to study Max will first have to let her out. There’s no mention that she needs to actually movee in order to do her Max Blast, so she can in theory start blasting even if they immediately slap restraints on her. And I can’t imagine a facility strong enough to hold her for an extended period. That period being 3 seconds more than the buyer needs to set up a reward for the heads of the mercenaries that brought her there…
If that stasis field doesn’t negate time, just immobilizes the target, though… RUN FASTER!
The ‘without cutting me in’ sounds more like he’s saying what people are expecting of him.
He’s a sleazebag, yes, but he’s a sleazebag with a business, and not only won’t he be allowed to make more trips to Earth if things like this happens, odds are that he won’t even be allowed to leave…. And if he can’t enjoy his winnings, what good are they?
I’m going with Larry Niven’s stasis field, on the grounds that if all it does is immobilise the subject, the subject can still think, and possibly “act” to rearrange her energy balance/flow…
A true stasis field means just that: the subject has no perception of time-flow, and will merely note a sudden theater-shift when released.
Niven’s stasis field had quantum levels; At the first level, hours become seconds, Max’s innate super-speed, even without point shifting, would probably be enough to negate it.
At the highest levels, such as the Slavers used? She might have time to think of doing something about it before the heat death of the universe.
The fact that we can still see her tells us that it’s not a Niven style high level field, because light reflects off those.
It could be a quantum Zeno effect stasis field. (“Look” at the target so often and in such detail that it doesn’t have time to change in between the observations, and is stuck.) That would be transparent.
If that’s what is going on, and her skin really is as impenetrable as advertised, they may have only put her skin in stasis. Rather inconvenient if that’s the case, since she couldn’t move or even breath while her skin was pinned in place.
Either way, with that many supers around, somebody is just going to punch out fire head, or melt her gun, or step in the way, or something. She’s not going to be in that field very long.
Very true. I suppose I should have added “visibility for Rule of Comic”. Niven never had the pleasure of writing a web (or paper) comic.
If measurement collapses the wave state, and this halts the procession of the quanta, that means the collapse takes time. So you’ve merely moved some energy to another facet of the quanta. The effect is quintessentially spatial rather than temporal. The quantum zeno effect is hence nonsensical.
Whoops. Effed up the closing tag.
The author isn’t a scientist, nor from all indication is he even a science dabbler. The fact that the light inside a stasis field could not escape it to allow you to see something inside the stasis field probably never occurred to him.
That, or the stasis field only reflects photons which collide, causing the field to still have nearly the same visual appearance even if all the photons are frozen in place.
But yeah sciencey handwave is more likely.
Light can pass through it therefore there must be some time (I know, probably something the author overlooked but I like being picky) however even if Max can’t get out Sydney has a shield that should cut the beam.
The author proved he was able not to forget when light should pass or not (cf the fight of Sydney vs the very big alien)
And for some extra stupidity points, Max isn’t alone. What’s their plan for dealing with Dabbler, Cora, Halo, Heatwave, Achilles, and Amorph, to name just those we’ve seen in the last few strips?
To be fair, Halo’s trouncing of “Captain Cthulhu and the Worldstompers” hasn’t made the intergalactic news network feed yet, so they probably have no idea the can of whupass that is about to be opened on them.
Not to mention the numerous aliens who could suddenly become intergalactic celebrities by saving the “Felslayer” from the kidnapper.
Their plan was “run away very fast with the prize”
Ray wasn’t really allowed to make this trip. He just moved so fast nothing is technically illegal.
Ah yes, the classic Silicon Valley approach of “move fast and break things.” Which, although originally was a prototyping statement, now effectively means exploiting market gaps and legal loopholes fast enough to establish a business, just in time for laws to be passed around your new industry that significantly raise the entry bar for competitors.
There still were the old laws, which still don’t look kindly on people who enter a country without the proper paperwork, abiding any local laws, bringing technology that’s not allowed on said location and enacting violence on locals.
I think we have reached the definition of “Really needs a shooting”. Hope the mercs have sufficient armour.
Currently nobody here’s a big enough threat to shoot.
Sure they have a weapon that can impair one of Archon, but they would still need to beat the rest of the team and they still can get easily restrained.
Several have already commented on his appearance being like that heavy metal Captain Sternn, but those teeth, skin, and physique do also give some similarities to Pitt from Image comics.
its all staged. Every bit of it.
Staged by who for what purpose? I guess New York could use the PR to bring in more rich alien tourists.
Arianna, of course. Not only show to earthlings that Earth’s Mightiest Atypicals arebetter than super-high-tech of aliens but also to any wannabe space pirate that it is not worth even trying.
New fanfic premise – Arianna and Ray join forces after an impassioned discussion on marketing spreadsheets and securing Archon’s intellectual property rights throughout the galaxy. Max and Cora become their baby’s godmothers.
Only if Ray is able to quit the sleaze and stay professional for more than half an hour.
By Ray, to make himself look good. Well, look better. Look less bad.
And thus he puts behind his cool sentence: “without cutting me in.” with the risk people hear it?
Doesn’t sound like a good out plan, but I’ve to confess no of the proposed plans seems to be very well written.
Wannabe pirates: You’ve only one way of this planet, but no deal with the person who manages it and are surrounded by people who get angry if you kidnap their boss.
Ariana fakes yet another robbery for marketing purposes: a little bit risky qua interstellar wars.
May I suggest Pyriglenax (Pyriglenaxi plural) for the species name? Pyriglena is Latin for fire eyes, or fiery-eyed. Why not just hit that nail on the head? XD
Also, gotta love a sleazebag whom has “principles” lol.
I nominate the name “Arkamites” (pronounced “arca might’s”).
Sternn. Sternn! STERNN!
https://youtu.be/kw69uy3HwCE
“They’re nothing but low-down, double-dealin’, filthy larcenous perverted worms (who didn’t cut me in on the action)!!”
For days I’ve been wondering how Ray has not been justifiably killed by the female population of the Galaxy. Now we know: Dave needed him for a Captain Sternn/Hanover Fiste reference/rip-off.
Homage’.
I’m sure Deus would pay that ‘billions’ to mount Max on the wall in his fortress. Probably has a space reserved for her already.
Oh I’m sure Deus would love to “mount her” but it would hurt his ego if he had to pay for it.
Mounting her on the wall Han Solo style is the only way he is going to survive attempting to mount her.
Why would you even think that for an instant? He was going to charge Sciona something like 7 figures for the location of the brane ripper, but took sex with her in trade instead. That is the very definition of “paying for it.”
Hmm. No, I don’t think so. He would probably show up with some undeniable reason why the kidnappers should just hand Max over to him, then release her on the spot. He’s always figured her into his long-term plans as an ally (and whatever else he can convince her to agree to romantically). As devious as he is, he’s always treated his underlings/conquests with respect.
Maxima being vulnerable to time stop feels oddly anticlimactic
Ray went all Beauty and the Beast, Turning from a handsome Prince into a giant beast.
I don’t think we have seen his “giant beast” yet…
I’m sure he would be happy to show it.
With that level of body change I would have thought his name would be Ray Gamma instead of Ray Cosmos.
Keep in mind the original origin story of the Fantastic Four are Cosmic Rays, which have been blamed for a lot of things in comic book history. So it still checks out.
… They have a military team present that they know can do some pretty absurd things. So what exactly was the plan after they managed to grab one of them exactly?
the same plan as The Doctor. running lots of running.
Here’s an idea. If the author wants to cross the streams of all this comic’s plot lines, the Council now sends in a group of vampires and werewolves and wizards (oh my!) to save the day.
Reminds me of Arkham Asylums Venom Joker, with a bit of The Mask cartoon mixed in.
Calling it now. Achiles is going to jump interpose himself between the beam and Max.
…. not to free her. Just because he’s curious to see if it affects him.
Actually I’d love to see this happen – it would be a great (and humorous) Gordian alternative to having Halo or Dabbler/Cora use their handwavium tech. So long as we still get to see some space-weapon battling before this plot arc is over.
Are we just not gonna talk about the second to last panel where Ray gets tackled by some tailed digitigrade fella?
Yeah, lots of people are talking about how dumb the interlopers are for trying to grab Max (they’re not wrong) but the kidnappers did apparently expect some resistance as evidenced by the appearance of Garamm. I presume that is a name and not a command or codeword. We don’t yet know if there are any other accomplices among the various visitors. One way to pull this off would be to hire Ray posing as tourists. The plan being to steal his ship along with kidnapping Max. Just to complicate things for the good guys, many of the tourists would be just that, naive tourists. the kidnappers could pose as tourists and only break character as needed. Only the active kidnappers need to hop on the ship with Max. Everyone else continues to mix in with the now confused and stranded naive tourists.
“Nobody try to stop us leaving, or the (carefully picked) hostage gets it!”
Maybe she’s just a decoy willing to die by publicly trying to kidnap Maxima while her colleagues are stealthily/silently stealing/supernapping Sydney while everybody watches her being spladdered by Maxima… Could be a conspiracy inside the galactic society by whoever attacked Sydney to clear the way for the elimination of all (somehow) dangerous races before they can start openly killing the galaxy and trying to analyze Sydney in case there are other Orb-Users. Maybe the Alari had a dangerous Flu or something else that would explain why they reduced the Alari amount.
So I guess the rule of thumb for the icon on his chest, is, white over blue, he’s just a douche, blue over white, brawlers take flight?
So it wasn’t a portal but a capture beam…! Now will Maxima ever escape from something like that???
Getting safed by a team of supers, entrepreneurs, adventurers, mages, soldiers, aliens and monsters.
I’ve got strong Vehemence vibe from RC’s grin.
Am i the only one thinking that purchasing a stasis field impaired maxima is probably a really good way to get your entire planet immolated the exact microsecond that she’s released from said stasis field?
Still worth billions – you just release her on your enemy’s planet instead of your own.
Depends on their diplomatic abilities.
DAVE! Sorry buddy, but this comic may need a little more work… Either her gun shut off, or you forgot to draw the beam and it’s light in the bottom panels. First panel: blue boob lighting. “Voucher” panel: no boob lighting. And no beam at all in the next WHAM panel.
Hmm, for that matter… shouldn’t there be a Max in the last panel?
I think what we have here is that digital drawing programs, like onions (and ogres), have layers. I think Dave forgot to paste in the one with Max and the beam into that panel.
If Dave wants to do an edit, he can post the fix to the Patreon page to make the subscribers feel special.
Nah. Maxi is hidden behind Garamm and RayC. The stasis beam is also hidden — all will be revealed on Monday.
I do love these cliff-hangers :)
Has any one else seen Dr. Horrible?
I can’t help think of the sound of the Freeze Ray powering down…
“That’s not a good sound” POW!
Would not wan’t to be the person holding the gun when the stasis field goes down.
Dr. Horrible got everything he ever wanted, and al it cost him was a single Penny.
So basically your saying Ray is the Axe-body-spray-the next-day-effect only without the bottle.
Ah, and Ray makes the Skeeze-Hottie Turn. Cora and Dabbler have confused ladyboners right now.
Garaam, thought to be an explicative, but summons her sidekick muscle. GARAAM TACKLE!
Not to be confused with the Garam spice blend. Though he might just be spicy too.
I suspect Cora is about to join the fight – Panel 3 has her changing her hard-light modesty-fur loadout into something, I suspect, more battle-worthy.
How did it take me so long to recognise Syndey’s lost sister?
https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20200916
Okay this explains how Ray hasn’t been violently murdered yet.
Also I wonder if Sydney’s shield could block stasis effects, and if so to what degree?
If yes then my guess is it would either keep time slowed outside her bubble but not in so she could be conscious and moving inside bubble, but if she tries to pew pew then the beam freezes in time building up at the edge of the shield (which could end in a big bang after the stasis field drops if Syd takes too long to notice).
Or she could still move freely and escape the field with just a step to the side.
Ummm. Maybe. On page 668, last panel, it is revealed that the tractor beam affects bubbled-up Syddles as one object, not two. So, it is possible that The Shield could go into stasis, but allow Syddles to zap FTEDT with her weapon of choice, which I would assume is a good reason to get out the PPO at narrow beam. Alternatively, Syddles can teleport out of stasis and either utilise the pseudopod or practice with her FN Five-seveN…
I can just see Sydney crushing the stasis gun with the Moles…er…Lighthook with a quip like ‘well, that looks important… whoops’