Grrl Power #885 – Gotta catch ’em all with their pants down
In the Grrl-verse, Supers can’t be deployed by a countries military against a foreign nation. They didn’t have any rules about that when Maxima and others were serving in Afghanistan and people realized that could escalate REAL fast. So now there are accords.
But, here’s the thing. There’s nothing really preventing, for instance, the CIA, from hiring foreign supers to, oh, I don’t know, clairvoyantly listen in on certain important people during meetings, or telekinetically mess with someone’s brakes or whatnot. Yes, the accords explicitly call that a bit of a no no, buuuuuuut, no country really believes that any other country won’t be doing that, and if you cloak said activities in several layers of obscurity and you just have a weirdly large line item in your budget for “Black Coffee” then, while it’s technically illegal to be a super powered mercenary – there are totally super powered mercenaries.
They don’t usually wander into street brawls though. But as you can see from this page, there are multiple incentives for them to do so if they just happen to be wandering by and figure they’ll get a significant initiative bonus because everyone else is already distracted.
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I wonder if Deus if the employer of said ‘like-minded freelancers’. It doesn’t seem likely. After all, he’s got multiple independent sources on extraterrestrial tech, but he could just be being a greedy S.O.B.
Yeah seems very unlikely. With his gateway I can’t imagine he’d both with something this open. There’s just no benefit in it for him. He even has the Alari to cover the bases on how he’s getting all that juicy technology, so people won’t ask questions or think to look for a portal.
This would just be sloppy for him.
I agree that it is super unlikely Deus has anything to do with anything here. The only reason I could see for him sending mercs in of his own would be to keep the technology out of anyone else’s hands so he maintains his monopoly. But again, super unlikely he’s involved at all.
I would counter Deus might be one employer, but this may also be NYC if not NY state local Supers moving in to make their own opportunity from the Offworlders.
Not enough to go on yet, sadly.
It being either City or state taking action even covertly is REALLY unlikely. He just hit a Federal Office in performance of her duty; that kind of behavior doesn’t get swept under the rug just because someone local is backing him (ask any local cop how far he has to back off from a Fed / US Marshal working in their city).
Another country using mercs to grab some US supers and alien tech is more likely, but then you have the problem of how they got here so fast. Which should mean there’s a Teleporter in the woodpile…
Honestly, these guys could be much like the aliens. The aliens have taken the opportunity to try and capture Maxima to sell on the black market, but these supers have taken the opportunity to capture some alien tech to sell on the black market.
It’s probably not that much of an issue on other planets because they have nothing the aliens really want and if there’s any attempt to steal tech the aliens have the technological advantage gives them superior strength of force over whatever the planet has.
BUT, Earth has “Supers” and this creates both something the aliens DO want AND a strength advantage which exceeds what the aliens gain from their superior technology.
I don’t think Cyberbeta meant it in terms of the official City or State administrations sponsoring a team, more as freelance Supers based in NYC or NY State. And/or the adjoining parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, probably.
Correct, remember how Opal and Vektor were both in the employ of SmugD, and still were involved in the Restaurant Rumble?
If Deus wanted to be extra-convoluted he could have put up the mercs to get pulped, then get the gear anyway when Archon confiscated it… because they sent it over to DeusLabs or whatever to have it analyzed (he’d make sure to get that contract, even if it meant taking a technical loss*). Of course, once he had the contract, why even bother with the mercs?
Also: generally, whoever hired these guys is an idiot. There’s no reward for success that would make up for the penalty for getting revealed. And Deus is, most assuredly, not an idiot.
It feels more likely to me that Deus had nothing with getting this set up.
That said, if Punchy here manages to get away with stuff, I’d say he probably has over a 95% chance of acquiring all the take before Archon finds it. Mostly because he knows things he shouldn’t, and likes acquiring stuff. That said, in the unlikely event Archon *does* find it, you’re probably right, they’ll turn it over to him.
I doubt Deus has hired this guy for this, since Deus is pretty much in love with Maxima and killing her would probably get in the way of the romantic outcome that is inevitable.
I’m not sure that’s in “love” as such, but he really wants to add her to his little book.
It’s love dangit. Maxima would get a whole encyclopedia. :)
Damm affabet agencies! There orta be a law agin ’em!
Bugger! Beaten into second by a second :(
Turned his back on Max.
Might regret that.
I was thinking the same thing, that third eye chick was the only thing keeping Max in check and now nothing is.
Not guaranteed though, the might be in bad state right now, she was heavily invested into speed when (from her perspective) a speedster with superstrength suckerpunched her.
Yeah, hes strong enough to punch through a top of the line personal forcefield. Max without anything in durability may well be unconscious.
It looks more like he absorbed it. We saw the WHAM. Then the arm glowing. After that the shield battery died.
And of course, Sydney and Dabbler are not going to do ANYTHING about this?
He can monologue all he wants, it won’t matter much of they get mad. Suckerpunching Max is almost guranteed to make them mad, so….
Demon with cool tech/magic weapons + ADHD girl with Nth powers= Ouchtime!
I don’t care WHAT you bring to the party. There is really only one thing to do.
You better hope your speed is is better than Sydney’s PPO gripping speed so that you can clear the blast radius!
Sydney has left to secure the de-powered pod, Dabbles was moving to a better location to start recording the imminent Torchy beat-down
He really isn’t very nice.
The fact that the Intergalactic Acquisitioners got owned on a back water planet cannot go unnoticed among the Intergalactic powers that be.
Along with Sydney’s annihilating the evil planet killer fleet all by herself and Stalwart’s beating up the Fel invasion…
Gonna be repercussions.
I dont think anyone outside Arc, Cora and the Oval Office crew know about Sydney’s planet killer fleet whacking and I doubt any of those are telling anyone about it so far.
I’m reminded bit of the ancient X-Men #105, from era when Marvel did not suck. Couple pages of funny parody of Star Trek along reminder that merely surviving Galactus few times can get one bit of a reputation…
I remember that. Convo, more or less…
“Captain, local archives indicate this planet has been visited by Galactus recently. Three times. And beaten him off.”
“Get us out of here, warp factor N”
It’s like North Korea launching a host of nuclear missiles at a small town in Missouri and those missiles just… vanishing when they got close. You wonder a) what this place has that would make them fire that many nukes and b) WHAT THIS PLACE HAS that would make that many nukes NOT ENOUGH.
Flying local Super; *Sends message to North Korea* [Thanks for the meal. It was delicious. Got any more?]
Town with a secret, or a “Code: Angelgrove”,
It remind me of a DC comics where an alien invasion fleet come to Earth and find out that this little planet host (at least) two kryptonians, five green lanterns and more other various super powered individuals than you can shake a stick at.
And yet none of them scare the aliens more than Batman. Logically we can defeat the super powered individuals eventually by just exploiting their weaknesses. What is Batman’s weakness? You just gave him access to your alien hard drive looking that up.
Blatman is Mary Sue, the ultimate definition of the term
Oh, so you’re extending that term to anyone with any hint of Plot Armor? That’s pretty much the entire population of every hero ever written by anyone, anywhere. Congratulations, you’ve diluted the term “Mary Sue” far enough to break the camel’s back and render the term officially meaningless. Now stop using it as a slur.
He has a big number: High end kinetic weaponery(just as any other armored human), surprise, parents, electricity for some unkown reason, reliance on money, his secret identity(a supervillain could get a real advantage over him if he knew his identity, because when douching he’s just as vulnrable as you and me in a military base), women and Robins.
The problem is precisely what you describe he plays dirty.
Blatman doesn’t have parents
Yet their memory hurts him until today.
Currrently all the galaxy has on record about earth is:
– beat up one Fel battle Cruiser
– beat up one group of acquistioneers
– beat up one Alari spy
– beat up each other
While certanly impressive it’s not close to what earth can do.
This could be managed by every “barely squabling along” civilisation, what Sydney did on the Alari homeworld is more like a full “space empire” civilisation.
With any luck, those in the know will come to the conclusion of “Maaaaaybe we really shouldn’t fuck with this planet after all.”, since there are literally sentient weapons of mass destruction walking the planet that look like every day people. XD
Or, they decide they are too great of a risk and destroy the sun
I’m sure Helios is gonna get a bit pedved about that.
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This is not good, she’s going to be in so much trouble for allowing pre-FTL people to access FTL-adjacent tech.
Given that she’s already broken a number of Earth laws – attempted kidnapping, assault & battery, assault on an officer, along with various laws regarding property damage, I’m sure that the Galactic laws she broke are going to be “once she gets out of jail on Earth, if ever” before those come up.
If she is lucky. One could argue she’s not human and thus cannot be held responsible on earth law, but can be treated as an invasive specie(shot on sight, experimenting, etc.)
Yup, could even use suggesting that scenario as a way to make her compliant.
“You can either be subject to our laws and its protections….or not. Choose wisely.”
Nope. None of those laws have been broken. NY state criminal statutes indicate that kidnapping (for example) is conducted by a person. And their definition of person includes humans and corporations but not aliens. So all that has occurred is a misadventure, not a crime, under the local laws.
So the galactic laws are the ones which cater for high tech starfaring mercenaries exploiting galactic backwater planets.
So if she’s not categorized as a person, she’s a dangerous animal that should be put down for public safety? I’m sure that’ll go better for her. Honestly, I’d be surprised if there weren’t laws *somewhere* about aliens, given how many crazy laws I’ve seen. I guess congress is gonna be busy soon.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
Honestly though, it feels like a pretty easy change to the law. It’s simply an adjustment of the definition of person to be intelligent beings… I’m sure there will have to be a few more nuances to better define intelligent beings but the point is that its less about changing every law than it is about adjusting a definition to cover more than just humans, then all the others derive from that.
But yes! Agree completely that if they’re not regarded as a person then they’re technically regarded as an animal or beast which really has no rights and is more likely to mean she’ll be “put down” like a dangerous animal, if they were really to follow the full word of the law
Define intelligence.
Lol intelligent would never be the word they would use. “Sentient and recognized species” would be the term. Why? Because apes are sentient, and we don’t know what qualifies as alien sentience. So the legalese qualifications would need to be dependent upon Earth receiving proof of a specific species’ sentience.
Of course, if you go that way, in all fairness, citizens will need to pass a Turing test to be covered.
If that ever happened you would loose a vast majority of the bureaucracy and all of the three houses.
You get bonus points in any Turing test, if you can get the examiner to question whether she is human.
the movie “Deus Ex” has that happen. The guy who came in to examine the android and test it begins to question if he isn’t a machine made by the guy who hired him filled with false memories.
Again, there would be more nuance to better define “intelligent beings” or such.
It might be as simple as anything which can pass the minimum tests that mark them as fit of mind to face a trial in the first place. In that sense if another species of Earth ape ever managed to pass that mark, it would be held to the same standard and granted the same rights as humans.
But more intelligent people, would work out the correct definitions, standards and measures. The alien ambassador could probably provide a number of translated examples from other planets who have similar legal setups and have gone through all of this before. Whatever the case, the adjustment wouldn’t require a complete re-write of any and every law, just an adjustment to something they all derive from.
They tried to attack Max. I dont think they are intelligent :P
Maybe just poorly informed (then whatever eager, greedy, cocky etc that would begin to explain the lack of intelligence gathering that led to them being poorly informed)
The Council (who have a meeting hall near there, recently repaired and security upgraded) deal with aliens all the time, so I am sure they will have means of dealing with non-terrains who decide to act anti-socially.
I see you have chosen Death.
They might have had one previously, when the Aliens were also clandestine “group” and secret knowledge, but now aliens are public knowledge they’d likely just let it fall to public authorities
I am always bemused by the ravening belief that making more laws will cure everything.
Everyone seems out for blood with torchy there but she has not hurt anyone at the moment. The general consensus is “boil her in oil! RAWR!” Mob mentality. At this point her biggest concern is probably being able to breath in fhe ne t few minutes to live. She needs medical attention NOW.
As for brute, hes shown twice he’s willing to use potentialy lethal illegal weapons (knucke dusters) against known authorities. Lethal sanctions would be authorized, capture if possible
Well “Torchy” is just doing the capture work… for kidnapping and human trafficking.
But she’s directing her goons to do plenty of kill work on everyone else. That sword was supposed to take out limbs and kill, while Sydney would be have suffered death by flesh eating acid if not for her shield. There’s a lot of violence and attempted murder going on which is being directed by her.
But as far as her being “put down” like an animal, thats not a call for blood, just interesting discussions of the technicalities of Earth law (specifically U.S.) which are generally written to refer to humans. At a PURELY technical level, Torchy would be treated as an animal under current U.S. law, but I’d dare say common sense would prevail and they’d either hand them over to some galactic authority the ambassador puts them in touch with or make a retrospective adjustment to the laws that cover alien beings of a certain intelligence level.
Hopefully local laws have been updated due to the known existence of aliens using a pre prepared definition.
Laws don’t get updated until AFTER an event. It does not help the initial case. Ever.
And my empathy for a sentiant being is not limited to the letter of the law.
Law only tells you what you can’t do. Otherwise police can’t do anything about a person wizzing in the park.
Go ahead just ask a lawyer about something like recording a conversation. They will waffle all over about it.
This isn’t the initial case. The existence of aliens has been publicly known before.
I’m sure Pander can educate us on the subject.
Actually, unlike murder, the definition for kidnapping uses the word ‘person’ instead of the word ‘human being.’ So….. actually an alien can be kidnapped, so kidnapping would be an appropriate charge to make.
New York elements of kidnapping:
“A person abducts another person when he or she “restrains” that person with the intent to prevent his or her liberation.”
New York definition of ‘person’:
“Legal person refers to a human or non-human entity that is treated as a person for limited legal purposes.”
The reason why person is defined like that, instead of ‘human being’ is because corporations are considered legal persons for the purpose of suing, being sued, owning property, and entering into contracts.
Compare this to the legal definition for murder:
“An unlawful killing of another human being with malice aforethought.”
(that’s why killing during wartime is usually not murder – the ‘unlawful’ part. Also why a dog can’t be charged with murder if it kills a human being (it’s not human) and why a human killing a dog is also not murder (it would be destruction of private property and several different animal cruelty laws.
Animals, legally, are defined as “any live or dead dog, cat, nonhuman primate, guinea pig, hamster, rabbit, or any other warmblooded or coldblooded animal, which is being legally used, or is intended for research, teaching, testing, experimentation, or exhibition purposes, or as a pet.” Aliens would therefore not be defined as animals, because they’re not legally used for those purposes.
TL;DR – Aliens are not human beings, but they are legal persons under a strict definition of the law. So they cannot murder or be murdered, but can kidnap or be kidnapped (at least under NY law and most US statutes’ definitions).
Makes sense, as there would be no prior precedent for a legal person to be the subject of a murder and to eliminate any vagueness that could be applied to animals such as livestock or any need to be over detailed to differentiate animal livestock from someone claiming the murdered someone with intent to eat them or something equally ludicrous needing to be avoided per cherry picking of the law. While a corporation as an entity requires those same protections and needing to be held accountable as a whole rather than giving them an out to throw a random employee under the bus.
as you can’t really murder a corporation it makes sense there is no precedence to re-word this law. But in this unique circumstance even prior to an incident part of their agreements to open trade with off world entities may require some rewording of those laws.
On this, what was the precedent that made companies start saying, “all living employees”, did someone try to collect paychecks for a dead person or something?
Well… there is precedent for non-human beings not being capable of murder under the legal definition actually – just not referring to aliens. There have been cases about trying to use it for animals and for corporations though. ie, you cannot charge a corporation with murder, even if the CEO orders the murder of a whistleblower, because murder requires a human being, not just a ‘person’. You’d charge the CEO, not the corporation, because the law and definition for murder says human being, not persons. But you CAN sue a corporation for breach of contract, because laws on breach of contract use the word ‘person’ instead of ‘human being.’ :) If a corporation ordered the kidnapping of a person, however, even though there’s no caselaw on that ever happening, it’s inferred that they would be able to be charged with that, just like they can be charged with fraud or breach of contract or theft like any other law which uses the ‘person’ language instead of ‘human being’ language.
What do you mean btw about ‘made companies start saying ‘all living employees’? What I was meaning in my previous post is that corporations are considered legal persons. The corporations themselves are legal persons in their own right, not just the human beings that make up the corporation. That’s how they were able to sue Arthur Andersen LLP directly, as a company, during the Enron scandal.
If you’re asking what law made corporations ‘people’ (it doesnt say living employees, just ‘people’) – that would be the 14th amendment of the US Constitution. The case that decided that the 14th Amendment meant corporations are legal persons was Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad way back in 1886 (118 US 394 – a link to the case can be read here for free -https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/118/394/ ), which said that a corporation had the same rights as an individual under the 14th amendment. And it was reaffirmed VERY often, including in Boston v Bellotti, 435 US 765, in 1978, which was a case which said that corporations themselves, not just the people in the corporations, have a first amendment right to make contributions to ballot initiative campaigns.
Hope that helps to explain things. :) Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Actually, there is nothing to stop ET from straight up shivving Eliot, he just wouldn’t be charged with murder
And, unless (or until) a corporation gains sentience and can act on their own without input or influence from a parasite inhabiting it, then no, they can’t (and shouldn’t) be granted 1st Amendment Rights to, well, anything, let alone ‘make contributions to ballot initiative campaigns.’
This is true. ‘The unlawful killing of ANOTHER human being’ implies both parties must be human beings. Sooooo ET can’t murder Elliot. Also Elliot can’t murder ET. Legally speaking. :)
As for first amendment rights, however, aliens could have first amendment rights, if they were U.S. citizens. The first amendment applies to persons, not human beings. Persons can mean human beings and non-human beings – literally that’s in the definition in the laws. Which is why corporations have first amendment rights (Boston v Bellotti).
Also, the reason why the first amendment applies is entirely because of using the word ‘person’ instead of ‘human being’ – and courts have been treating corporations as ‘legal person’ entities since 1886, so for almost 135 years. It’s even been continually reinforced every time it’s ever gone to SCOTUS in MANY cases.
Mainly because there’s nothing in the law saying sentience is needed. Mainly because it’s really hard to nail down what ‘sentience’ actually means, and if you can’t firmly cement what a word means in the law, it’s hard to write a legal definition around that word. The closest they have as a definition for sentience, in the law, is ‘One with the faculty of sensation and the power to perceive, reason, and think’ – and a legal entity like a corporation meets that requirement, even though corporations are not ‘de facto’ sentient. They can perceive, through marketing. They can think, through the administrative C-level. And they can reason – through Operations and C-Level Management.
I’m reminded of that Star Trek TNG episode (The Measure of a Man) where Dr. Maddox is asked to describe what ‘sentience’ is, for the court to determine if Data was sentient. It’s very similar, actually, to what we’re discussing :)
So, with that incredibly narrow definition of what an animal is, what would you categorize a rapid badger assaulting people in time square as? Vermin? *shrugs*
Non-human legal persons. Until the lawis amendedto change the definition on murder to include Non terrestrial alien life, or until they add into the law a definition of non terrestrial alien life and that it can be used interchangeably with all terms of the word “human being” elsewhere in the law. :)
However, the big guy is a local (as in from this world), so the laws of the United States and state of New York would apply to him. Assault on a Federal Law-Enforcement Official would be the most likely charge, depending on what other stupidity he gets up to in the next few minutes, before his arrest.
Halo: Hey, Dabbler! I got this guy tied up with the Light-Hook, but I need him a little more distracted. Can you jump rope for me again?
The jump rope only worked due to how Vehemence’s power worked. This guy might not have that same violence requirement. In fact, I hope he doesn’t as that was only interesting once and the team knows how to counter it all. Still, is Maxima soon to become a Worf?
the jump rope worked because Dabbler has hypno boobs and that was able to snap him out of his focus.
and also on the Worf effect. I warned this a few pages back, so many people keep calling her OP or other terms; that she honestly hasn’t lived up to. She isn’t close to the Worf effect yet as she has held her own and mopped up a few problems *vault guardian at reduced power (make a note of that everyone talking about her dumping speed and potentially being hurt her, a supernatural debuff meant to reduce even elder vampires to weaklings wasn’t enough to prevent Maxima was ripping the giant skull golem to pieces), which tells us Vehemence was likely into the s-class range like a Hulk when he punched Maxima and made her bleed.
She has held her own and been pretty powerful; but my warning was everyone thinking she was still being OP; if DaveB had her constantly losing fights to show how tough the latest threat is; then she would fall into the Worf effect.
some that comes down to, you can’t please everyone. Try too hard in either direction and you either end up with the living deus ex machina (which can still work for a character driven series like Tenchi Muyo), or if you build up a character as strong but then have them constantly fail to live up to their hype needing to be bailed out everytime; Worf effect.
Yorp, NY State has a VERY lax standard as to what makes a “Person”.
you should see some of the mobile sewage that wanders around here and gets legal protections of “Person” in NYC………
No, that just sounds like a personal bias on your behalf
I doubt it is the statute that defines a person. That’s something that the courts have declared themselves. The infamous Dred Scott decision was about the personhood of an individual. More recently, a court has declared a chimpanzee to be a person. (B.A.D. decision, by the way.)
A legal person is something that is recognized by the court as able to conduct business before it. If you want to enforce a contract, both you and your counterparty must be legal persons. If you want to assert rights against the state, or if the state wants to assert rights against you, you must be a legal person.
No there really are statutes that define “person”…its not just the court. Courts dont make legal definitions, they just interpret the existing definitions. There are several statutes defining “person.” New York uses the federal definition found in 22 US Code sec 6010.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/6010
https://www.ncsl.org/documents/lsss/tue_haskins_handout2.pdf
Person is only synonymous with anything broader in very rare circumstances Usually for differentiating between living people and corpses or living animals – 1 US Code sec 8.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/1/8
Meant narrower, not broader. Sorry
fail the job get mugged also punted trough a tv … yep this day is starting to look sucky for firehead
Oh don’t worry, it can get worse. She could get whisked away to a laboratory for … reasons.
Although Maxima would very much disapprove, and the Twilight Council would protest. However the latter have failed to keep up their end of the bargain in stopping these kinds of incidents from occurring in the first place. Whereas Maxima’s public mandate covers supers not aliens. Of course there is the secret deal with the Twilight Council, but they may actually not be bothered if it is not one of their members, nor anyone officially sanctioned to operate on Earth.
Actually, Maxima’s mandate doesn’t say “supers” its to deal with “Unusual threats”. Knowing about aliens and others means that they publicly talk about Supers because that information is public knowledge. I can see no reason that they wouldn’t essentially become tasked as the enforcement for any individual in the US. As for New York state law, the thing Youp is missing is that groups are covered under ‘accessories to -crime-‘ I don’t believe any law explicitly calls out humans either. Also all laws are very clear that it is up to individuals to know the laws, and that lack of knowledge is not a release from following it.
Many or most laws include a mental state to qualify for the particular crime. It may be knowing, willing, intentional, malicious, willful or whatever. Crimes that don’t include such a state tend to be at the far lower levels of the crime.
Good point, conceded.
The ones for NY State (and many others) do. Take kidnapping for example, the criminal statute defines this as being “committed by a person against another person”. When you look up the definitions, in the same statutes, for the terms used, it stipulates that a person is a human, a corporation (or other specific groups, none of which could be stretched to include a group of alien mercenaries. Not unless they had set up a company that was recognised by the USA.)
I did paste links to both the pertinent statutes and the definitions, on an earlier post. However that caused the reply to fail to appear. As this is probably some issue to do with the links themselves, I will not risk repeating that here. However it is a simple matter to google both, to verify the information I have summarised here.
In conclusion, under NY criminal statutes, no crime has been committed because no “person” has attempted to kidnap Maxima. This is pertinent to the “whisking away comment I made (tongue in cheek, but something that governments and spy agencies would actually contemplate and have done similar things at various points in history). Namely because the lack of criminal culpability cuts both ways.
The aliens cannot be considered criminally culpable, because our legal system does not recognise them as being people. The other side of the equation however being that because they are not people they have no rights (arguably they may have the rights of animals, but they may not even qualify for these limited rights, depending on just how ‘animal’ is defined in the relevant parts of NY laws).
So if these aliens do get kidnapped, interrogated, dissected and killed, no crime will have been committed under US state law. Because murder (etc) is committed by a person against a person, and these aliens are not people.
Actually Yorp, in New York And in most US statutes, a person is not defined as a human being. It’s defined as a human being or non-human being – the original reasoning for this was so that corporations could be directly sued,(or so others, and enter into contracts) instead of suing just the people in the corporation.
So yeah, a person can include aliens. Because when arguing the law and you come up to something that’s vague or ambiguous, you can’t automatically rule against the person by adding to the definition. For that, you’d need the state legislature or the US congress to pass a law changing the definition of the word person.
If I was in a courtroom, and someone tried to argue that aliens cannot kidnap others because they are not ‘legal persons,’ I would argue that the writers of the law clearly did not intend for person to just mean ‘human being’ because if they wanted to do that, they could have written in the law the word ‘human being’ instead of ‘person’ (like they do with the legal definition for murder).
BTW, even if you are to find a law on the NY books that says human being rather than persons (which I don’t think it is – I’m pretty sure it’s still ‘persons’), because of the Supremacy Clause (Article 6 of the Constitution) any federal law, even if only a regulation from a federal agency, supersedes a conflicting state law. The definition of kidnapping is listed in 18 USC 1201 (the federal kidnapping statute). In this case, the definition for kidnapping in New York is in Article 135 of New York Penal Law. (135.00 to 135.75, although the only ones that would fit in this particular case are 135.00 to 135.25).
And in New York, the definition for kidnapping is almost identical to the federal statute – both use the word ‘person’ instead of ‘human being’ (135.00.1 – “Restrain means to restrict a PERSN’S movements intentionally and unlawfully in such manner as to interfere substantially with his liberty by moving him from one place to another, or by confining him either in the place where the restriction commences or in a place to which he has been moved, without consent and with knowledge that the restriction is unlawful.”)
Don’t you mean, whisked away by “Government sponsored vivisectionists”?
Could also be corporate sponsored vivisectionists. Actually it will probably be both.
Wouldn’t it be one and the same, what with all the outsourcing these days …..
Yes, but the smart ones like to get paid twice. No reason they can’t invoice the gubment and Deus for the same job.
Well of course, how else will the Nerve Weasel get it’s daily exercise?
He he. I was waiting for those to make their appearance.
You don’t want those burrowing through your nerves!
*gives Yorpie Snax*
The “day” could end very well for her. Granted, not near as good as she hoped, but after she is arrested, she is told she can leave Earth, minus all super-science equipment, and plus warrants from the government most rabid about letting barbarians get hold of super-science stuff [which will be where she would be going], OR she can explain how these super-science toys all work, etc and earn a nice consulting fee for her aid. Of course she would still be jailed for life, but there is a serious difference between the black hole of Calcutta and several floors of Trump Towers, and since you are a prisoner, you can’t be deported until you have finished your sentence, no matter how much these other world want to chastise you.
Of course, she may just be a thug who knows only that she pushes this button and it goes “boom”. But the odds are she knows all sorts of useful facts. Plenty to make it a great deal to keep her in luxury.
You’re coming to a planet where one person essentially destroyed a end of the world class Battleship all of the co-workers were shown easily handling hordes of would-be killer infectious combatants and you think that they’re the only dangers there? Is your head okay because power like that doesn’t crop up in a vacuum there’s species head to be fighting against something pretty massive for them to be that powerful and it’s extremely unlikely that the ones you saw on broadcast are the only ones like that.
reminds me of those kind of moments where someone hires a hitman to go after someone like Daredevil but while in New York they run across a street fight between Venom and Ghost Rider, and as soon as they try to attack Daredevil on a roof top the fight draws the attention of She-Hulk, Spider-Woman, and Squirrel Girl passing by.
NOT mostly inoffensive.
NOT mostly harmless.
Actually, Earth is mostly harmless, but there are a couple of dozen individuals that are far from harmless. Once again, reference Mugging the Monster. (TvTropes link; you have been warned).
The scene on the Fracture where Sydney and Cara get ‘mugged’ by a handful of soon-to-be-deceased muggers is a great illustration of that trope.
I think “Other gang of criminals stealing from original gang of criminals” is a separate trope entirely, but I’m not going to hunt TvTropes for it. Not that you said Mugging the Monster applied to this situation, I’m just saying that the current comic isn’t an example of that trope.
“Actually quite harmful”
“IT BURNS!”
They have a cream for that…
That’s what I get from reading in my own language first, having several versions mixed up in your memories tends to cause this kind of jumble.
Two pages, 2 sucker-punches.
I don’t like him.
Nope. I don’t like him at al.
I am gonna nickname him Mark Zuckerpunch.
Youcan Find him on Faceblock.
He’s large enough to be Zucker-BERG.
Da-dum CHIIII.
And yet he and others of his size we have seen are all wearing well fitting clothing. Where do these guys shop? “Really Really Big and Tall” stores? If they sell to the burgeoning Super community, do they offer items in their “Flame, Acid, and Bullet Resistant” section?
For example, why doesn’t Heatwave wind up naked after each time she sends out a full body heat blast?
For Heathwave the answer is in general, because her heath blasts are often far away from her and come from her naked hand.
Yet you make a valid point. There will be an industry in this, because supers have a lot of money and a lot of problems in normal society.
For example super strength, if this extends to the muscles close to their private parts suddenly wild times become a little too wild without armored condoms(with and without holes).
Super speed without extended super durability becomes a lot more fun if somebody sells you a top layer of graphene clothing.
Heathwave still needs heathresistant clothing for cases like her time with liquid osmium game.
Achilles, Stallward and Hiro should go shopping for normal looking armored clothing.
Maxima just needs a Z-cup colection.
Harem gets a lot out of that extra gram of clothing you manage to squeeze out of the design.
Ren would probably appreciate friction resistant clothing.
Varia is the worst, because her needs depend on her power.
Bullet resistant clothing for bullet resistant supers would probably just be very formfitting under layer on which everything else rest, so all the momentum is directly transfered in the super.
I myself most of this would be done by specialised tailors with design staffs with degrees like mechatronica, chemistry and engineering and salespeople with degrees like communication, psychology, fashion and physics and the prices will be on levels you and I could never afford for clothing
*I myself think
An anatomology degree could get you in the sales staff too.
Ofcourse all work clothing is for the team Arc-sparq’s problem.
Actually, Heatwave produces a, well, heatwave completely surrounding her body, not just from her hands
Look back a couple pages where she is doing a ‘Phoenix’ pose with flames completely surrounding her
And Archon has a Super Tailor on staff: Iron Cloth
Don’t forget the Barberian :)
Basic immunity to one’s own superpowers in the Grrlverse extends to the super’s clothing as needed. This is explicit for Max’s powers, but implied for those like Heatwave and Varia (and Varia’s donor) in that we’ve seen it many times. It seems less likely to extend to
beefcakethe men, since we’ve seen their clothes torn up multiple times, but is also less applicable since most of them are just super strong/tough – I actually can’t think of any with energy / environmental powers?Achilles doesn’t have environmental powers.
Varia’s donor get explicitly mentioned by her.
Vehemence has environmental and energy powers.
Ah yes, of course Vehemence! And possibly a few of the villains we’ve seen, at the parking lot battle or in the cutaway shots during Max/Arianna’s discussion about the public response to her weapons range demo.
But still can’t recall any guys on the Archon side with energy/element powers. The only hint in that direction on the cast page is that Hiro might have something besides flight/strength (which we might see shortly?)
The guys do have powers other than super strength, but those are all personal. Stallward has density control up to either 5703kg or 23,881kg depending on whether he measures the Appolo 13 in launch weight or landing weight, Hiro flies and maybe something else, Achilles is invunrable, Math is a turbo skilled martial artist and Ren has super adrealine.
I think he said he made himself weigh as much as the space shuttle, not Apollo 13.
So…. if that’s his upper limit (not sure if it is, just the most we’ve seen so far), his density control goes up to at LEAST 4.4 million pounds (2 million kg). A lot more than either 5703kg or 23881kg :)
Note that the Space Shuttle’s full 2000 tonnes is for the stack assembled, loaded, and ready to launch: orbiter, tank, side boosters, payload, and (mostly) fuel. The orbiter itself is ‘only’ 78 tonnes, with no fuel or payload.
In comparison, the full Saturn V stack used for the Apollo launches weighed nearly 3000 tonnes fully-fueled (quotes vary from 2600 to over 2900, which may reflect variation in mission requirements). A mass which was reduced to only the 5.56-tonne command module by the time the crew splashed down back on Earth!
Varia’s clothing doesn’t survive a vampire transformation https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-816-horrifying-demon-monsters-are-only-skin-deep/, but does survive a fire transformation https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-797-bust-a-gestalt/.
Was this the first ever high powered kidnap mission for these idiots?
“you can’t horn in…” sounds more like a whining preteen than a hardened merc who enslaves…
Not to mention just standing there liike an idiot watching Maxima move closer and closer.
also sounds like your average An-Cap when someone with better resources and manpower comes along and takes their shit because … “its free real estate”
More evidence they are were just the first to try a smash and grab; had no real exit strategy, came down with a tour bus, weren’t targeting Maxima specifically but took the opportunity. and given their bragging (no one who is a best of the best brags about being the best of the best like that to their opponent), and the kind of equipment. I feel these guys come across less kidnapping super powered individuals and more poachers. Like they are more accustomed to tracking down the rare lightning spitting six armed Vartosian monkey demons, or the giant predatory voice mimic weasels of Avian Earth than going after other sapient armed individuals.
Oh, come on, all the US agencies and military forces would be the very first to recruit supers, and the US wouldn’t ratify any accords that would restrict their use of supers in any way.
Actually they very likely would ratify it- Supers are far too unpredictable in terms of their powers which means there’s far too much risk that one with unexpected powers could totally screw you over, so taking them off the table militarily is a smart move if you the worlds top military and economy to use to get your way as backup.
then why was the US withdrawing from the INF treaty?
Because we elected an idiot. Hopefully that will be remedied soon.
Why did we elect an “idiot”?
2016 was set up as a cakewalk for Madame President. The fix was in with the Republicans (16 clown posse anyone?) so they were not trying to contest it. My reaction when the Donald announced was “well Hilary just orgasmed”. And then the media got behind him and pushed! The Powers That Be have the government locked up… With campaign finance the election usually comes down to the left hand puppet or the right hand puppet. Obey the Masters or be replaced.
Killary Hilltonne only put her name in the ring because she was being investigated for war crimes, notice how that whole thing just *POOF* went away and has never been mentioned since?
Are you talking about the Bengazi thing? She was investigated by many highly biased, highly partisan Republican led panels, and none of them could find anything to use on her. If there was anything there, we would heard all about it from Moscow Mitch and his cronies.
Because the 30+ year old INF, signed between the USA and former USSR is no longer valid. Then there’s the fact that the USSR, now Russia/Putin has a long, proven history of cheating and outright ignoring ‘treaties’. No, don’t believe it? Do a search on Russia’s SSC-8, SS-25 and RS-26 missiles. Electronic Warfare was my forte a subset of which is the intercept and analysis of missile telemetry. I have personally witnessed more violations of ‘weapon treaties’ than I can recall. Also, no other nuclear capable nations (China specifically but there are others) were parties to the INF. Outdated, useless and unenforceable.
(pulls a pin)
It is so interesting that the “Presidential Debate Commission” is deciding not to have a debate on foreign policy, given all the recent international events and that it is half of the President’s job, don’t you think?
(lobs the grenade and ducks.)
Being from the other side of the longest undefended border in the world [super surveiled]
The US is, was and always has been one to ignore treaties and international accords when it didn’t suite them and their corporate overseers. Big Oil, Big Pharma, Hollywood, Robber Rail Baron, Coal Kings, Banks to big to fail – failed – bailed out – paid themselves bonuses and went na na na can’t touch me suckers
Not normally, the US is sort of arrogant like that. But, between the all the various supernatural, alien, divine and other entities that have been more or less peaceably lurking behind The VEIL for far longer than the US has been around, it’s entirely possible for them to have strongarmed the gov’t into accepting said accords.
If freaking ODIN is hovering over you and telling you to play nice, most normals would tend to play nice, if very grudgingly in the case of certain idiots-in-charge.
What was the name of the guy who has taken over an African state again? How did the VEIL force him to accept any agreements? Did they? Because if I remember correctly, his super forces have already attacked a foreign nation.
This world would already be in a state of super cold war. And every rogue nation already has super forces and agents.
1) Deus is not a signatory.
2) They went in on invitation of the neighboring country.
3) He specifically said that the UN would probably send him a strongly worded letter of condemnation in about a decade.
1) As I said, that’s the problem: Rogue nations with supers. There are no accords with those.
2) “Invitation” to invade another country with your military forces, then claim the ground. Totally legit, nothing suspicious about that.
3) And that’s the reason why the US will have to deploy super military forces (like ARC SWAT) as soon as they’re involved in a war: The foreign nation will probably not care about accords. Besides, I don’t understand why it should be ‘Malum in se’ to use supers against a foreign nation while it’s OK to deploy them against enemies on your own turf.
Remember when a Fox morning show aired footage of the huge explosion in Afghanistan of the biggest conventional US bomb? They were really proud of the USAF and what they’re capable of. Nobody questioned if that was necessary or what damage to civilians it may have caused, because they (both Fox patridiots and the US forces) don’t care. They would totally use supers if they could.
oh boy…. if we ever get out of the Obama administration… I refuse to imagine the quote.. but i could totally see his ego mandating that he ‘withdraw’ from the accord.
since there are totally super powered mercenaries… that means a whole new level of paranoia for our professionally paranoid groups. I expect a big part of ARClight’s work is consulting with the POTUS security detail. telekinetically messing with a certain vehicles brakes could have unfortunate consequences. Also, don’t even get me started on doing that to the v-22 or a helicopter. telekinetically blowing a nut into the right place could cause all sorts of problems. any ex-military people want to or can talk about FOD?
Well FOD is mostly a core design issue that has been ignored for the longest time.
It’s not like they can’t design systems to deal with the issue, it is that they just won’t.
Also the air-force likes sexy aircraft to move their meat-sacks around in and to heck with the logistics of the things.
So someone who loads a weather balloon with fireworks crazy glued with washers would be a viable threat – not a good look on the accounting sheet
I think you’re underestimating our pragmatism, or at least overestimating human stupidity.
History proves that at least armies, if not people in general, easily understand the concept of “mutually assured destruction” and seek to avoid it.
Take the nuclear bomb, for example, and the research that went into determining whether or not its use might ignite the atmosphere; to quote Compton “It would be the ultimate catastrophe. Better to accept the slavery of the Nazis than to run the chance of drawing the final curtain on mankind!”
It turns out that despite all the claims of human recklessness and self-destruction, if a cosmic gun is put in our hands, most people don’t like to shoot themselves.
It’s not hard to imagine us taking a similar attitude to the sudden appearance of superhumans and not wanting to escalate conflicts to literally earth shattering levels.
Well yes, barring certain type of characters (human and not) whose end is actually to wipe humanity from Earth because we are the real virus/sickness/danger in this planet and it will be better without us.
Some of those can also be part of a selected group to actually survive the apocalypse and inherit what remain of the planet (if any) but this is not a requirement.
>Some of those can also be part of a selected group to actually survive the apocalypse and inherit what remain of the planet (if any) but this is not a requirement.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here?
I was trying to follow the line of thought where the characters want to wipe humanity except for them (and maybe the selected group of others) and then live in what remains of the planet.
And that this specific scenario is not a requirement for them wanting to wipe humanity, there are the ones which accept it as a suicide mission if it “cleans” the planet.
Sorry if it was hard to follow, English is not my first language.
Hey, it’s cool, SH. English is my first and I’ve written worse.
Might wanna re-word that. It looks like you skipped a sentence or two of context.
Guns are bad example
A training instructor shot by a kid he handed a machine gun to
The various idiots doing stupid things with firearms like a handgun duck-taped to a drone.
It’s my understanding that most of those are accidents, not intentional self-harm.
How does one ‘accidentally’ duct-tape a handgun to a drone exactly?
Or ‘accidentally’ point a laser pointer at an incoming plane?
My point is that humans, or at least militaries, aren’t willing to destroy themselves for no reason. Not even to spite an enemy.
Not that people don’t do violent, stupid, or destructive things.
There were several events in history where we’ve been just a few minutes away from “mutually assured destruction”. And it doesn’t matter if that would have been accidents: The whole situation was intentional up until that moment. For example, the US decided to deploy ICBMs in Turkey, then the Soviets decided to do the same in Cuba. And let me point out that the Generals in the WH argued to attack in that situation.
Kinda majorly missing the point there. I never said militaries wouldn’t kill lots of people or take risks.
And using ICBMs doesn’t refute that point.
Those weapons have a known, limited degree of damage they can do.
And thus doesn’t guarantee rapidly escalating out of control to genocide/humanity ending levels of force.
Which is why I used the example of when we thought the Nuclear bomb might light the atmosphere on fire.
So it seems like you are the one that doesn’t understand what “mutually assured destruction” means. Go watch WarGames, the side who pushes the button first would want to make sure that the other side can’t send their nuclear warhead ICBMs in return.
I’m still laughing about “limited degree of damage”, by the way.
(I don’t see what a sci-fi film has to do with this.)
But, no, it looks like we just have different interpretations of the phrase.
When I said history shows that militaries want to avoid “mutually assured destruction”, I’m talking about them not walking to kill their own side en-mass/cause unpredictable damage that could bounce back at them.
As in: Most don’t want to use a weapon that’s just as likely to kill themselves as it is to beat their enemy, or cause an exchange that would do the same.
>I’m still laughing about “limited degree of damage”, by the way.
Why? It’s true.
Bad as Nukes are, if they were actually capable of lighting the atmosphere up, we wouldn’t have used them at all.
Same goes for superpowers that can escalate to unknown and unpredictable levels of damage.
Compared to that; you can at least predict how much damage an ICBM conflict would cause.(And they don’t all have to be Nuclear either.)
I think the major part of the Cold War that you seem to be ignoring is that neither side was actually willing to wipe each other out along with their opponent.
Yeah, actually… they weren’t sure. The Manhattan Project was 5 years into development before commissioning an investigation to make sure the bomb wasn’t going to flash-boil the Earth. Only 6 months before the Trinity test, when it was practically built already, and they certainly didn’t stop production while the study was happening.
As to whether superpowers would actually use them… they absolutely would (even after WWII), especially against an unarmed enemy. The military protocol for both the US and USSR was absolutely to return fire if fired upon. In 1983, a Russian officer on night watch saved the world by breaching that protocol and ignoring false attack alerts not once, but from alerts for 5 missiles.
>Yeah, actually… they weren’t sure.
No, they explicitly made sure before any attempt at launching.
The decision was made that if the chance of that happening was greater than three in a million, they wouldn’t proceed with the project; they crunched the numbers and proceeded after they were less than that.
>As to whether superpowers would actually use them… they absolutely would
I feel like we’re talking past each other.
Nations being willing to use Nukes, and even then only in retaliation because they knew how it would escalate things, AFTER knowing that one detonating wouldn’t end all humanity, is besides the *initial* point:
Would a military be willing to spring out an experimental, but likely highly dangerous, power without knowing it’s full capabilities or how it could escalate things if others did the same?
And answer is, historically, No. Because the strategy of “blow yourself up along with your opponent” is not a large scale, viable outcome for most people. Even in the face of tyranny/enslavement in the case of Compton.
The bomb was still built before they were sure about its safety for the entire planet, which means it would’ve been deployable regardless of the findings. Yes, they checked before actually pulling the trigger, but if it hadn’t been safe it would’ve been hard to take off the table forever instead of finding a way to dial it back under some threshold. But the full potential would’ve been known at that point, leaving scaling back up as a possibility forever. The decision to use the bomb wasn’t up to the scientists, it was political / military and not based solely on the science.
As to your point, whether militaries have or would ever deployed dangerous weapons without fully understanding them, even if the troops using it could blow up themselves or the citizenry? Yes.* They’ve done so successfully many times for centuries**, and they’ve tried^ many others (and occasionally had leaders backpedal afterwards^^).
History is full of examples of militaries with scorched earth policies destroying anything and everything that would assist their enemy, including their own territory, citizens, and troops – clearly military leadership is willing to do just about anything to win, and WWII thoroughly demonstrated well-conditioned troops will carry out any order, including immoral and even suicidal ones.
A superweapon that provided a quick death, destruction of large numbers of an ancestral enemy, and eternal glory in Valhalla would absolutely get used once it existed.
* Handheld nukes – fallout, what’s fallout? Oh then we can deny any area to anyone!
** Chemical weapons – wind direction is a fickle friend
^ Universal acid – production facilities captured, logistical difficulties
^^ Nerve agents – not the naysayer I was expecting
>The bomb was still built before they were sure about its safety
Yes, but that is entirely besides my point.
>Yes, they checked before actually pulling the trigger
That is my main point.
> The decision to use the bomb wasn’t up to the scientists, it was political / military and not based solely on the science.
If you don’t think all kinds of generals weren’t getting reports, if not one the site in-person, during any major developments then I’ve got news for you.
> and WWII thoroughly demonstrated well-conditioned troops will carry out any order, including immoral and even suicidal ones.
Never in real dispute. But scale makes a pretty big difference.
>A superweapon that provided a quick death, destruction of large numbers of an ancestral enemy, and eternal glory in Valhalla would absolutely get used once it existed.
You vastly underestimate how common such a mentality is. Many armies/nations have chosen surrender and compromise over inevitable death. Especially when that death potentially includes their, well, everything.
> * Handheld nukes – fallout, what’s fallout? Oh then we can deny any area to anyone!
** Chemical weapons – wind direction is a fickle friend
^ Universal acid – production facilities captured, logistical difficulties
^^ Nerve agents – not the naysayer I was expecting
What you’ve listed are bunch of *potential* hazards with known dangers that can be, and have been, avoided by people that use them before.
Scorched earth too; it’s just large scale destruction, but with direction and purpose.
That’s not the same as guaranteed mass suicide of the majority of your own army. It’s not even close.
Interesting – her fire-eye always points up
Clever. Some organisation figures out there are aliens making a visit and deploy these guys. They maybe do some opportunistic theft with the stealth guys and keep a bruiser as backup.
THEN idiots pull out guns and weaponry and suddenly the situation changes to open grab, ‘cos weapons are a whole other level of priority.
…And Sydney just to sent away to stow a big technological doodad somewhere… An irresistible target considering she’ll probably be using flight and lighthook rather than shield, but I suspect they’ll end up dealing with more than they bargained for.
Probably flight and shield. She would hover above the device, turn on the shield (getting a little of the pavement beneath it) and take off. Land the shield onto new ground and turn off the shield, using the lighhook to adjust its positioning to find out how bad Maxima kicked those alien’s butts. She’s gotta’ be anxious to get back quick to at least see Dabbler’s video. (no, not that one, the one of the fight)
Her shield tends to shape according to her underground, so shield is enough.
Better option would be to sit on the orbs and go from flight to large shield then light hook to flight.
*gasp* Dabbler split the party!
I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop – i.e. who is the rest of “we” with this guy?
Your description is just exactly how spying works.
It’s illegal.
Everyone does it.
If caught you pretend it didn’t happen.
Then exchange imprisoned spies later.
Send Vehemence ( :
Ouch – i wonder how ARC will manage first aid and stabilisation for aliens ? She likely got a few bones broken there…
I guess the cora & dabbler can help on that, but if they’re not around…
Yeah, what I was wondering. Whats’ a NYC paramedic going to do if she has an external chest exoskeleton matching her head and it looks like a piniata from a party full of sugar-fueled toddlers? If she has normal(?) ribs her chest is now a beanbag and no practical way to tell EMTs what neccessary squishy parts are being jabbed by bone fragments. “AGH! My Henway!”
Well they should be able to recognize pieces of the TV screen and can remove those. But this is a risk she took going someplace where they don’t know what medical conditions she has. She is still conscious and can talk to her Rescuers. But that’s why there’s that whole fun Trope of stranded on a different planet in science fiction.
Anesthesia is just poison in small doses.
Everything is poison in a large enough dose, and many poisons are medically useful in small enough doses.
Who ya gonna call? @911
She can apparently talk, so her rib-cage/thorax must be at least partially intact. She wouldn’t have anything to pull against otherwise, to force air across the vocal folds or whatever her species uses to form her “voice”
“What’s a Henway?”
About 1.5 kg!
Yeah, how would Arc-light fight sneaky super crimes.
I mean meta-powers have been confirmed with nemesis, thus someone can always just have a power like “being able to handle everything Arc-light comes up with”.
My best solution is building a database of all supers the hard way and counter them par person.
That would curently mean: Super high pressure vaults, copper layer in the walls, reflective walls, guards with multiple kinds of weapons including high end brute force, non-kinetic and normal ordenance and super heavily armored vaults.
If you’ve additions, questions, suggestion or compliments feel free to comment.
+trackable mist and multiple doors behind each oter
Nick Fury.
She shouldn’t have trusted that book that said Earth was “Harmless”.
*shakes book*
This thing is broken!
It’s only mostly harmless and she wandered directly into the exception squad
Original: Harmless.
Updated: Mostly Harmless.
Most recent update: This planet sucks.
Still can’t beat the last big battle of the Tenchi Muyo OAV series.
…only example I can think of where the villain destroys a third of the Earth as an introduction and almost all of the moon to punctuate a sentence, but time gets rewound after the battle, with the main cast remembering, because two members of the main cast have just been revealed to be two of the three goddesses who created the multiverse as part of an ongoing experiment.
To be honest, very little can compare to that battle.
(I have the limited edition DVD set)
Then they made Tenchi in Tokyo…
*Groan*
fairly certain the alternate time line series were all made before the third OVA came out.
they ended up going back and continuing the original timelime with the third OVA set between the second and GXP in the timeline (keeping GXP canon to the OVAs); then the newer series War of Geminar takes place after the third OVA; and the fourth OVA is just exposition to explain War on Geminar while distracting the audience with either cute things or sexy things. *I was disappointed in the fourth OVA; we didn’t get to see more of the wedding just the planning, and no reaction introduction between the Jurain royal family and Tokimi, she is just around we are clearly seeing things past the point they find out she is Tsunami and Washu’s sister…and THAT
THAT is what I was looking forward to them finding out, Washu is Tsunami’s sister; their own patron goddess, source of their great empire’s technological power is sisters with Washu. but no…off camera moment…
Well one space battle might compare, but not animated.
Yes, only one of my favorites – battle was from e.e.doc.smith skylark #4 series duquesne book.the war between humans and chlorians l.
The tecchi universe et all (yes i liked gxp too) did yave big battles, but none with quite the same scale.
Added to that it was oridinary people. A bit of space scifi vs space fantasy.
It’s a bit hard to compare directly.
Wha…?!
I clicked Reply on Sigurther’s comment.
Careful with these “Reply” entities, they’re tricky little buggers. Make sure the one you’re looking at says “Reply to xxxx” “Cancel reply”.
If it is Deus…
The result of this is the mercs (Deus) get the tech and the world is closed to “tourism” (limiting the supply of tech).
*If* they manage to get Max then Deus can be the white knight riding in to save the day.
He might even claim they were there as backup for Archon.
No, Deus would NOT do that. He’s quite aware of the law and that vigilantes are NOT welcome.
He might state that they were there in an unrelated errand, and that they decided ‘as concerned citizens’ to help out.
Except that the bruiser punched Maxima. None of Deus’ hired muscle would ever do something that stupid. (and it sinks the ‘concerned citizen’ argument, also)
Deus most likely have a comprehensive dossier on the team, and would keep his muscle updated on their capabilities. and he’d keep them updated on the do’s and dont’s around them.
Also, this may be one of the supergoons belonging to a local crimelord mentioned early in the series.
Good, that is the right message to be sending out at the moment! Discourage looters and invaders.
Wait until Deus has cured global warming, war, starvation, poverty and disease, before sending out the tourist brochures.
Well it sure ain’t “Mostly Harmless”
Well it actually still is since there is a noticeable population of illegal aliens in residence who for the most part have not run into trouble pretending to be pat of the general population.
It is when you start breaking things that the local get upset and may decide that you are a threat or worse yet, a valuable resource.
reminds me of Dr. Who where those blood magic aliens invaded and the Doctor was like, “tell everyone this world is protected”; only for Torchwood to blast their ship out of the sky; and he’s like “I gave them the wrong message, I should have said, run, run as far away as you can”
and the thing is Torchwood was right. Dr. Who wouldn’t be around all the time to bail them out; they needed to keep Earth as far out of the galactic radar as they could till they were ready for what was out there on a more global level.
Hey, wait.
Did his brass knuckles just drain the shield and why didn’t he just use a melee attack directly.
Does the shield stop melee attacks? Are his brass knuckles energy weapons? If they’re energy weapons how do they do what Heathwave couldn’t do in minutes in seconds? Was the shield already weakened? What would be their power source?
Looked to me like he penetrated the shield, like an armour piercing attack through armour. The force field then fizzled.
There is no sign of energy being emitted from the knuckles (to my reading the effect in panel 4 is from the shield, much as we see Sydney’s stressing, albeit this having different visuals, but on the same plane as the shield).
The explanation which springs to mind is that the knuckles may be made of something that causes force fields to collapse. If the shield is created by something analogous to a magnetic field, then his knuckles may just create destructive interference with them.
Or he may have a super power which does that, and his knuckles are just there to divert attention from him being more than just a bruiser.
His brass knuckles seem to have vanishing properties as well. This or he is really quick in putting them on and off, since he doesn’t wear them anymore when catching the gun.
I’m under the impression he just overloaded/drained it out with the punch. We know her stuff has limited power in its batteries, and maybe a limited draw rate from those batteries too.
I love the imagery of her getting punched through a giant electronic American flag.
The event is being recorded by dozens of phones, and possibly news crews. There is a mixed message here. I’m not sure what the screen crawl on the news report is going to be. “Local Super Punches out Alien Invader!” or “Criminal Super Assaults Law Enforcement and Destroys American Flag!”
it’ll probably be BOTH… depending on the channel’s take on “Supers” in general, and\or their views on the USA as a whole… if they seem to be PRO-super, Pro-USA, then it will more likely be the first headline, but if they are anti-usa and/or anti-super, then the second one could be used either as “criminals are EVERYwhere in the US and even the LAW can’t rein them in… or if they’re more anti-supers than anti-US, then it could be something about how the criminal element doesn’t even respect their nations Flag in the pursuit of their criminal agenda…
Why does he remind me of Vehemence?
Are we sure it isn’t?
Kevin have a much better taste in clothes.
It’s not Vehemence. Kevin looks completely different, there’s a distinct lack of tattoos, and he’s currently locked up, high as a kite watching or playing Kirby on TV while eating doritos and/or popcorn.
As I said, reminds me… not “That is”
Hey, that’s a foul! Dibs have been called!
But seriously mister Cestus just broke a shield that both Cora and Dabler wanted.
“break” may be relative, depending on the rendering technology
I was irked because the fight looked like it was over, but then I realized the fight CAN’T be over until Achilles is buried in rubble.
Word.
+1
Well, this just got exponentially more complicated.
It would seem that someone has decided the “kidnap supers et al for research purposes,” route is viable, regardless of the risks. And apparently has the resources to deploy their own acquisition team on no notice.
Also, this just turned into a Super Fight, with an unknown number of unknown hostiles of unknown capabilities, in a high risk environment. And I’m doubting anyone has figured out to yell “RUMBLE,” to indicate it’s time for every normie to vacate.
Meanwhile, most of our guys are absent, those who are here aren’t getting support from ARC-Light, and half of them are still tied up with IA aliens.
I have a feeling that the outcome of this encounter is going to come down to whether Dabbler, Heatwave, Achilles, and Mr. A are able to perform like competent professionals without being directed by Max…who does in fact seem to be getting Worfed.
Irritating as that is.
I did think afterwards that she could probably user her shield to transport the pod, but I suspect she has likely just flown off with it.
…Another POSSIBLE option might be to use the light bee teleportation, but I’ve no idea if the transportation would include anything elde by the lighthook but a *shrug*
so far, it just makes her appear where her simulacrum is.
Yeah but we’ve seen the simulacrum show her shield, so if she had something inside her shield would it transport that as well?
Further, if she had the light-hook out would the simulacrum show the light hook the same as it showed the shield, and if so, would it show anything the lighthook was holding. If it does, then would it transport that object with her?
Well it does include her clothes when she tentaports, so maybe it would work?
Fireheads are surprisingly durable to survive getting punched through steel.
Nah, looks like she just got punched through some leds, glass, wires and flimsy plastic with potentially a regenerating shield.
A serious concussion and broken bones still seem like the minimum
If this comic had audio, the last panel would have ‘Candle in the Wind’ playing in the background.
Which version?
A display of that size requires support, either steel or rigid aluminum. Besides, the kind of striking force to move a body that distance is insane and lethal to a human.
Good thing she’s not human, isn’t it?
Pesky supervillains, always barging in on someone else’s action and stealing their stuff. They ought to be illegal! Oh wait….
Well, I dunno. I don’t think it’s at all like the CIA to do anything…. I dunno… completely evil.
I mean, yeah, there’s MK ULTRA, war crimes, unauthorized chemical and biological sprays over Canadian and Amercian cities to see what certain substances would do to the populations, murder, illegal testing on prisoners, etc etc etc etc etc etc.
Well, ok, yeah, they’re evil people doing evil things.
From the sound effects, it does look like his punch drained/shorted out the shields.
As for the brass (or whatever metal) knuckles vanishing, I would put that down to what Dave could draw into the scene. Definitely an earthling super, though (he called firehead an alf); what’s troubling for ARC is how many friends does he have.
No one really understands that nearby is someone who took out some world killers.
If I’m right that’s pretty easy, because there’re only like 5 people in the world who know that.
Classifying the last three updates, great understanding boost and heavy emotional event for Halo nobody knows about seems like a smart move from security perspective.
A little like it’s a smart move to classify Maxima’s lack of weakness to electricity(and maybe enforce the idea with a PVC dress) and Dabblers arsenal.
I think this merc is in trouble, unless he happens to be a friend of Max’s. Two reasons: First, the only thing that was keeping Max in check has a battery that’s about to die. He’s got about 2 seconds after stepping into the fight before she ends it. Second, he just turned his back on her.
So, wait. Is that guy a knock off of Boom Beach’s Pvt. Bullit?
Hey, you’re the one who thought that showing up and picking a fight at a planet that you selected out ONLY because it boasted absurdly powerful supers was a good idea. If you can’t take the heat, Torchy, stay out of the kitchen.
This ain’t their first rodeo, and they came prepared for (almost) anything