Grrl Power #891 – Enter the Wench! (Not that way, pervs)
Before anyone asks, “All of whose powers?”, that is the first line on the next page.
My first question is, how did she discover this powerset? Did she get a summer job at a home and garden shop that just happened to be owned by someone who had the super power to till soil with their mind. And was also evil, I guess. She specifically said “supervillains who hire me” so maybe it only works with bad guys? That would be my second question.
Hench Wench is a Patreon cameo character from… actually I didn’t ask if she wants her name here, so uh, stay tuned maybe. Anyway, she didn’t give me any instructions for the cameo beyond the name, so I came up with something that honestly might be a little overpowered, but she seems like she’ll be fun either way.
Max might need to talk to Heatwave about not trying to immolate tangos. Or suspects. I’m not sure what Arc-SWAT calls people actively criming. “Suspect” seems like you’re not sure if they’re guilty. If they’re actively punching your teammates, a more proactive term might be appropriate. “Tango” sounds a little terroristy, but can also mean target, so I guess it’s okay.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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When you fail on the last reel of your Limit Break
Too few superheroes have powers that can be affected by corporate charters.
While Hench Wench gains her employer’s powers, she clearly doesn’t gain the experience and muscle memory that would allow her to use the powers effectively. Thus the face plant. This makes for an extremely overpowered character who is mostly comic relief.
For now – but she’ll learn…..
For now – but she’ll learn….
… Enter Syd and the Copycat strategy
You mean, the one that, in all logic, should have failed with just one question?
“Do you know how her powers work?”
That is, if you are talking about what happened in the RolePlaying game at the start
Another reason why that wouldn’t work here: Henchie probably took the time to study up on what their powers did
Best guess? She knows how to get her power to work, but not WHY her power works. So she just keeps repeating the method that made it work the first time regardless of if the method actually makes her power work.
That or she is flat out lying. Sometimes you need to sell yourself for if you fail especially when you want to be hired by the more successful (and rich, powerful, etc) groups out there.
You seem to be referring to “The Centipede’s Dilemma.” But as Spider Robinson pointed out in his story of the same name, it takes a proper idiot to fall for that trick…Oh, wait! Both Max & Dabbler have already noted, she IS a proper idiot.
Well, if the Centipede’s Dilemma doesn’t work, I’d think the next best thing would be to figure out what kind of terms & conditions she’s working under & then tricking one or more of her “employers” into violating some conditions of that contract…That would render the contract null & void, she loses her powers.
Nah, only that her boss is a proper idiot.
Second part: Do you know the rules of her contract?
That is the CopyCap.
Very weird to look back at the art of that first issue. And to see them discussing how to film a flying guy, when a couple of years later we have cheap drones all over.
No, the face plant was because Brooke was *YOINK*ed out of her grasp moments before Brooke was supposed to hit the pavement
She doesn’t need to know how, or why, her power works, just how the power she is ‘borrowing’ works
Did the bad guy just save Heatwave’s life there?
Or is that Max’s arm?
Neither. That’s Mr. Amorphus with untextured pants.
Whoops, forgot the cameo. And yeah, that’s Mr. Amorphous.
Camo, cameo is a brooch or a guest appearance in a show or movie. SubZero made a cameo appearance in today’s page of Spinnerette.
That’s Mr Amorphous’ arm, as noted by it’s stretchiness and non-goldness.
Neither, that was Morph saving his girlfriend
I think that’s Mr Amorphous?
In the real world, that would have been Mr. Amorphous dislocating her hip while she stroked out from the excess acceleration while upside down. Thank goodness for comics physics!
Well, I suppose there was a reference to her becoming tougher when she has her flame aura going.
exactly hip dislocating……ouch!
That’s probably better than a pavement-induced skull-cracking, isn’t it?
In addition to the resilience granted when her flame is on, it takes a lot to dislocate a hip, especially of a young fairly well-muscled person who presumably doesn’t have connective tissue disease. When they do occur, hip dislocations are generally caused by direct force backwards, as well – in a linear pull there are some of the strongest structures in your body holding it in place. You’d probably have to snap the neck of the femur as well as some of the strongest muscles in the body to pull the hip out in a linear fashion.
The extent of any distraction injury done by this grab depends a bit on whether there was any give when he grabbed her or if it was a totally abrupt stop, of course.
Yep it’s hitting stuff that does and then you have other issues with that like potential compartment syndrome. But I’ll take a dislocation over displacing a pelvis any day of the week. Not displaced from a fracture, there are other ways. I might know two of them very well, one of them too well.
Meanwhile, Morph’s major feature is his malleability, so we can assume that his grasp was nothing like her being grabbed by a steel claw.
When I was a teen, I worked with a neighbor installing silo driers. I was the inside guy handling the nuts, he was handling the outside work.
First day on the job, I’m waiting for him to put the first bolt through, hear a scratching noise, then nothing. I poke my head out of the silo, and he’s lying on the ground at least 40 feet below. He hadn’t bothered to use a safety harness.
He lucked out, and landed on a barbed wire fence, which cushioned his fall enough that he *only* dislocated his pelvis. The ground was pretty soft there, too, with all those cow pies. (It’s a bad day when tearing through a barbed wire fence and landing on cow pies is considered good luck!)
My next summer job was building him a wheelchair ramp…
He said it was pretty painful.
At one time I was young, fairly well muscled, and taking gymnastics as a PE elective in college. I must have dislocated my hips and shoulders hundreds of times, didn’t hurt a bit. Then. I could even pull some stunts on the rings that our Olympics hopeful couldn’t do. I was so flexible back then that I did my toe touches on the stairs, palms flat on the next step down, for the challenge.
Hurts like heck now that I’m in my 60’s. Turns out hyper-mobility syndrome has its downsides, like arthritis.
It’s probably worth your time to check out https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/what-is-eds/
Oh goodie! Another power mad overconfident villain identity reveal with well …………………. not the best name. All the good ones were probably copyrighted ……………
Clearly, one of her clients has the power of over-exposition and it applies to her as well.
Yes, one of her clients, it’s the woman who kept on saying all what weaponry they have that then got Lubed by Xuriel
the alien mercs and super mercs are two separate groups; just these super mercs decided to jump in the fight.
Now I’m imagining the evil gardener who infiltrates enemy (AKA. competing) gardening shops to spoil their soil.
Ooo, this just means team Archon gets to repeat Operation: Counter-Periwinkle
In 2000AD, if you are not a Judge, you are a ‘perp’ or a ‘potential perp’
“Just plain creep to me”
Dredd
The powers are great, but do you think you could copy some competence as well?
I’d say that the lack of competence saves this character from being just another boring OP super duper man. The klutziness balances out the OP problem.
She has all their powers, huh? That means… she has all their weaknesses as well? o_O
If their main weakness is all of them combined are still weaker or ineffectual on who you are fighting then it isn’t very useful. Imagine working for a bunch of mana power based characters but then go an fight an anti mage or mana drinker. Or just I have the powers of ten supers..
The then you just beat up all at once…oh crap
Was just figuring on their individual weaknesses: weaken each one in succession until she is left with just her own power
If this is just another power mimic whose body has to keep the powers separate then aside from that there is another fatal flaw; the incompatible powers, if their power doesn’t include an “adapt”, “amalgamate”, or “filter bad powers” sub-power then they run the risk of copying powers that contradict and counter act each other when used together; one power is so much stronger than another with its special conditions that it actually works against it *like you gain an energy absorption power that far exceeds an energy projection so you end up draining back most or all of your own blast automatically*, or powers whose user has a unique physiology that doesn’t qualify as a special power (world rules may vary) yet their power draws from the same power pool as supers so the copy power can’t tell the difference and uses it too.
-as well as other specifics.
(Rogue once copied Scarlet Witch’s power but couldn’t use it beyond a small energy shot because the power required specific mental states, training, and was mostly magic backed by mutant power),
simpler, your team has a pyrokinetic that requires them to pyromorph to use their powers, but you also have a hydromorph on the team, unless you also have an amalgamation or adaptation power you can’t use both at the same time. Although those who can do that tend to be feared by their own teams as too powerful, turning the whole team into nothing but a power pool back up for this headliner to collect powers from.
Or she might have a similar weakness to Mr Phrasic Portmanteu himself and not be able to use all of the powers at the same time.
Imagine she is hired by Zatanna and Jericho at the same time. Zatanna’s power needs her to speak backwards, but Jericho is mute.
Jericho’s muteness isn’t part of his powerset though.
Here’s where Arianna can finally be a hero – if the lawyer can get the LLC dissolved (or whatever the term is), Hench Wench’s powers go away. Otherwise, her powers are rather broken and are going to give the team trouble.
Heh. Arianna deployed in ARC-LIGHT BDU’s as a Combat Lawyer.
Omygawd, super-combat-lawyer OP, please nerf ;)
seriously that is very scary, what would be her powers?
-automatic auto-aquire knowledge of laws wherever she is?
-auto rule-lawyering on the relevant point in discussion?
-auto-complete any form, whatever complex or pointless it is?
-500m attraction of easy-won and lucrative legal case?
Lawyers are superhuman. Even in real life.
<3
Supervillains, there is nothing to indicate they are human
We are heroes I tell you. Heroes!
Dang it, I was on page 2 suggesting this but didn’t realize I was on page 2
So, I have 2 questions: First, assuming that the power works on “supers” and not “supervillains”, would she have unusual interactions upon being hired by Varia or The Mighty Halo?
Second, is there a way for Archon to declare the LLC suspended pending investigation of criminal activity, and would that instantly depower her?
She probably wouldn’t gain anything from Halo, Sydney doesn’t have any superpowers, just super tech.
The results from Varia might be interesting though.
actually she might get something from sydney if varias results are any indication
when varia experimented with sydney, the orbs started orbiting around both of them rather than just sydney – indicating that she could utilize the orbs
it is possible that that result is because the orbs are keyed to sydneys biometrics so only she can use it, but since varia most likely morphs her own biometrics when she gestalts powers its quite possible that she mimics sydneys enough for the orbs to get access
– if thats the case hench wench shouldnt get anything… but if its a special power on sydneys end that lets her use the orbs then hench wench most likely would be able to use the orbs
“Indicating” – No.
“Hinting” – Maybe.
She’s fun. Hench Welch needs to be added to the rogues gallery and needs to pop up as a recurring villainess, if only because she has a unique and fun power that you don’t see anywhere else.
They would first need to find out the name of the L.L.C. first, and even then, it would take time to get a judge to listen to Ari let alone have it enforced
I would not be surprised to find that ARC-SWAT has a judge assigned to them for the kind of situations where there’s a problem but they expect someone might be able to argue it wasn’t exigent circumstances. I mean, Guy What Got His Clothes Destroyed might leave his wallet behind if he ran away, and they would need an arrest warrant at that point to go into his residence legally, or if someone with a superintelligence kind of talent built a suit of power armor, they might need to go into his house if they don’t see him walk in there with the Aluminium Man armor.
Any villain who carries around ID and their home address on them deserves to be Sydney’d
The police can use ‘Probable Cause’ to gain access sometimes.
They have to explain themselves afterwards, and if the judge doesn’t agree, they risk losing any evidence collected, or the case itself.
Also “exigent circumstances” – a valid reason why they can’t wait for a warrant.
They can also reasonable suspicion sometimes. Reasonable suspicion is basically little more than a hunch or conjecture, although a refusal to cooperate is not enough to give ‘reasonable suspicion’ according toFlorida vs Bostick (1991), but a person running in a high crime area IS enough (Illinois vs Wardlow (2000). That’s enough to frisk or briefly detain a suspect (they don’t have an exact time, but courts have said more than 2 hours is too much time in shoplifting situations).
Reasonable suspicion can then be used to GET probable cause, once it’s obvious that a crime has been committed.
Of course, after he hit Maxima, none of this is needed :) A crime was definitely committed.
If the police witness a crime firsthand, they can pursue that criminal into a private residence without needing a warrant.
They know she was hired for this gig, so the LLC can’t be more than a week old. That cuts it down considerably.
A judge could rule that any LLC formed for this illegal purpose is legally NULL. Meaning, if effectively doesn’t exist, and never has.
A judge could also agree to suspend all LLCs formed in that time period.
The question becomes, does she get the powers because she WAS hired by the villain, or because she BELIEVES she was?
In the latter case, just telling her that the LLC is legally NULL would cancel her powers.
Dal I love that you brought this up before I did. Illegal contracts are void. An LLC requires contractual agreement. Therefore you cannot have a legal LLC to commit crimes.
But you can have an LLC for legit purposes, like “superpower-related combat research” and then direct your employees to do something illegal without invalidating the overall purpose of the LLC.
Employment contracts are also contracts though. So even if the LLC is for legal purposes, if you are hired for supervillainy as she’s suggesting…. that’s also a voidable contract :)
Normally that might not matter among criminals – it’s not like criminals are going to sue each other for breach of contract – but if her powers require an official employment…. then that’s a problem for her as soon as she commits a crime which the employer is having her do as part of the contract. She’d have to be like a bodyguard or executive assistant, which can be for employment purposes outside of being a supervillain. Sort of like Vale is a completely legal employee of Deus, who does nothing in a supervillain mode, because Deus is a reputable businessman, even if he sometimes employs people with criminal records (ie, Vektor) – because he believes in giving second chances to people. God bless that wonderful man.
May cancel her powers – or, introduce enough doubt as to WHO hired her and thus WHOSE powers she actually could acquire…
“just telling [Hench Wench] that the LLC [employing her] is legally NULL would cancel her powers [if they’re based on the belief that she was hired] – Dal
Assuming that she does actually believe the person telling her so. It would get rather more complicated if she demanded to see the evidence, and doesn’t rule out the possibility that her Power recognises syndicates even where the law does not.
Up to DaveB how easy he wants to make it. It’s possible that a LEGAL agreement designed to support the commission of a crime would be illegal, and thus easily nullified, depending on what the LLC does to actually give Hench Wench the enumerated powers – I think, if her granted powers are based upon whether SHE thinks the people hired her or not… the undoing of the connection could be as simple as getting her to doubt whether it could be an enforceable contract.
Doubt and faith and such – just her not KNOWING the LLC is enforceable could cause enough confusion as to WHOSE powers she gets that she would end up with no powers at all
Super Suplex Piledriver…DENIED!
More like when Brock Lesner attempted a Shooting Star Press and fell short on his head. This lady is tougher than that.
So she’s basically KopyKraut? Where’s Sydney? She could big a big help tactic-wise.
Perhaps KopyKraut will be based on this encounter!*
*yes yes, we’re still “in a flashback” since comic #12 or whatever, but given the relative number of ‘flashback’ to ‘realtime’ comics, I really prefer to think of the intro strips as foreshadowing.
One way to defeat Hench Wench would be to figure out which of the villains is the gang boss, and bend him or her until they yell, “You’re Fired!”, at Hench Wench.
i can see that
“fire the wench”
“no”
“do it”
“no”
“sydney breath on him”
“oh dear god wench your fired”
then again if you could hold the hiring agent down … would henchwench be such an issue
“I heard a rumor that you fired HenchWench.”
That’s… not how corporations work
By “Gang Boss”, read “Managing Executive Officer”,
It depends on how the LLC was structured. She was “hired” by the LLC, so it’s possible that any active member can fire her.
Given Maxima’s Military Background™, as well as their active Meta-Criminal Activity, ‘Tango’ (for ‘Target) is appropriate terminology.
UUUUHHHG, bad skyrim dress, check …. uhg name, check …. this one belongs on M.R.X mods …..
Oh look, it’s Evil Gloating Trope Girl!
No one else said it, so I will:
Lookit that textbook scorpion she pulled there!
Somebody call Rob Dyrdek. (What would the category be called?)
That was my first though as well.
was it thought?
That power seems oddly specific. I wonder if it is actually more of a case where she thinks her power works like that, while actually it is somewhat more like ‘gaining the powerset of supers I work for’. The contracts and supervillains part being just more easy for her to cope with.
… How does one even discover they have that power? That seems like a pretty specific power and especially considering supers are still pretty rare population wise.
Supers being rare was what they thought… until Kevin managed to round up a couple dozen to ‘test them out’ (and to give himself a nice feed)
Even then, that’s still an incredibly small slice of the over all population and hers is such a super specific power. How would a power even determine that one is being employed by another person with a power? That particular makes me thing that the employment part of her powers is nothing more than a psychological crutch she uses and that she can just copy powers at least for a limited amount of time.
Basically, she can copy any power with the psych limitation that she has to think she is working for the person. So all they have to do is convince her that she’s fired, or that the LLC doesn’t legally exist.
There are some major employers in the United States, and all it takes is for one of the thousands of persons in them to be a super and her to be low on the ladder.
My own headcanon is that she’s an informant for a large police department like Los Angeles County Sherriff or New York City Police Department. She’s a criminal, but technically employed when she receives her fee-for-service.
Since “finding out things” is what law enforcement orgs do and possibly one of the powerd duplicated, it would be easier for her to find out just who and how her powers suddenly appeared and disappeared.
Gardening job by loud millionaire.
Finding out you can suddenly lift a hunderd tons.
Lose job.
Find out you can’t lift a hundred tons anymore.
Put research in subject and maybe reemploy in their service.
Discover they’re a super villain.
Maybe try to get a job at Archon or another non-villainous super with this information and find out they don’t give you powers.
Get interested in the subject and test your powers under differing conditions.
If you suddenly broke the pen after signing an employment contract, would you want to know what caused it? I would.
If you found out you got powers from your employment, would you want to know it’s mechanism? I would.
Who grabbed heatwave’s leg there at the end?
Mr Amorphous
Morph, the dude in the previous panel
Ooooooooooh
Somehow, I thought that was Knuckles….
A rather specific criteria for a power copier, maybe there is a mental blocking component to only those who hired her. Unlike Mimic from the X-men whose limit is only mutants and a few square miles. But at least it is temporary
That said a contract like element has a rather demonic feel to it.
so she’s like Amazo. She’s actually the most dangerous person on the team right now. Quick get her bosses to lay her off!
Hey she stole someone’s role playing characters power. It was based off that CopyCap character from first webcomic I think.
Kopy Kraut, and where do you think Sydney stole the idea from?
Someone needs to hit the Wench with a wrench (primate may or may not be involved)
I strongly endorse this, – ” Spanners, my only weakness!”
yeah, but spanner doesn’t rhyme with wench…
All i can say is she resilient, or she would have super embarrassed face planting into the city street with her ass in the air like that.
Maxima reminding Heatwave to not destroy “tangos” makes it sound like Heatwave is prone to crashing into fruit stands. Or dance studios. And suspects – well, these guys ARE sus, but they’re also actively engaged in illegal behavior. Perpetrating, as it were. With that in mind, may I suggest the term “superps”?
Actually Tangos put’s me in mind of the Tango adverts from the 90s. Men painted and loin-clothed in Orange who would double face slap people who drank Brtivic’s drink called wait for it….. Tango. It’s an Orange fizzy drink. Pretty sure the adverts were only ever shown in the UK but for the curious https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhOeG-uTJxw they are on youtube.
I would have thought maybe Hostiles would make sense for active combatants though I do like Tangos.
Also love the notion of Hench Wench, I would likely have gone for an LLP (Limited Liability Partnership), were I her instead of an LLC as shareholding structures might make her powers if they work that way more complicated. If the company is split evenly say 5 ways thats one thing but what if one of the team has a 40% share and the rest 15% would she only copy the powers of the majority share holder or get proportionate levels of power. If a non-super had shares would that factor in.
Erm also Hi, been reading for a long time just never commented until today
so whoever hires her, just walks into all criminal organisation laws? nice one!
It doesn’t have to be the specific purpose of the organization or even a purpose.
Imagine I’m a super powered bank robber(inefficient I know, but I’m super strong not smart). I’ve had some good heists lately, so I’m spending some of the money. One of the things I do is hire a hairdresser. She suddenly gains super strength.
Perps
You call them Perps (perpetrators of crime)
Hah, right, I should have thought of that one.
Why is she not working for Deus? On his dime she can have one of the biggest pools of superpowers on Earth to copy. As a bonus Deus could teach her how to act like a even more stereotypical hammy supervillain.
Google the difference between an LLC, and a multinational Corporation.
Hench Wench’s powerset may be limiting her to just her employer (ie direct boss), or Deus may not view himself as a supervillain per se, which would gain her nothing.
Deus is smart enough to think of something. He could just hire his supers to hire Wench.
It’s debatable if Deus is a super villain but he sure loves acting like a classic super villain.
If Deus’ intelligence qualifies as a superpower, she’d be able to think of something too. But he claims “Being rich is the best superpower“. I wonder what would happen if he hired Hench Wench.
Being a super can be scanned as an inert ability of someone.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-80-she-used-this-spell-to-scan-a-hotdog-once-once/
This ofcourse doesn’t mean he’s not a super with the power rightness.
*richness
Certain commenters (such as our friendly neighbourhood lawyer)would credit him with rightness as well.
$5 says they’re called “Bad Company”
So bad they stole the name of a rock band.
Maxima should encourage Dabbler use the declotifying spell all the time. It’s a great way to disarm opponents. Who knows what kind of weapons from the mad scientists lairs the super villains can hide in their underwear?
Wouldnt stopping someone from falling at that speed suddenly by grabbing their leg like that either cause a horrible dislocation or a broken bone?
Read up the page to find out why not
Just did and its a weak as hell justification with unrequired secondary superpowers.
I just have this image in my head of Leon rapidly finding her registered contract, hacking in and deleting/rescinding it.
Poof! Powers gone.
I like her, she’s fun.
with the damage they do and the fact that they are doing it in the open like that, “suspects” won’t do indeed
ignore the fact that they have superpowers for a sec and just focus on the rest: they fit “terrorists” perfectly
Damage only qualifies you as a vandal and that is after court.
Terrorism requires the intention to spread you guessed it terror.
I would fill them in somewhere in “enemy combatants” if they’re hired by a foreign entity or “suspect robbers” if they’re not.
L.L.C.?
Can anyone explain the meaning and implications?
Limited Liability Company
Stands for limited liability company, and the implications are basically comic book logic, so we’re just rolling with it. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilInc
Remember, you can do more evil if you do it legally.
See Micro$oft for prime example. :)
One of the core premises of the excellent How to Succeed in Evil is just how lacking in business acumen the average villain is. Just robbing a bank is a terrible ROI for anyone bulletproof, they oughta be making a fortune on a bomb squad or clearing mine fields for war-torn countries. I love that DaveB integrated this bit of fridge logic into Archon’s operating model.
I think the word you’re looking for is “perpetrator.” It means “the person who did the crime, even if we don’t know jack else about them,” as opposed to “suspect” which means “the person we think did it, even if we can’t prove it.”
And everyone is either a Perp, or a Potential Perp, so sayeth The Jaw!!
“Max might need to talk to Heatwave about not trying to immolate tangos.”
If a tango doesn’t want to be immolated, then maybe it shouldn’t tango with the immolator. ;-)