Grrl Power #894 – Plan B from outer space
Okay, so I’m making fun of myself a little with this page. My actions scenes aren’t ever going down in the annals of comic book history for their intensity. There’s a lot of starting and stopping.
Personally I think mid-combat banter is fine, but mid-action banter is bad. By which I mean a shot of Spider-Man delivering a paragraph of dialog while dodging a bullet doesn’t exactly make you feel the adrenaline of the moment. Yes, it’s a simple abuse of comic book time, but it does make part of your brain wonder if Spidey is a really fast talker or if the bad guy is firing extremely subsonic bullets. Like “how is it staying airborne” subsonic.
Hench Wench would either be the worst Super they could kidnap, or the best. The worst, because presumably this little cabal attacking the team would terminate her employment if they all got captured or if she went AWOL/got abducted. Or the best, because while she wouldn’t have active powers to beat up the crew/damage the ship/be a general nuisance, presumably she still has that… factor that makes her a super, and maybe that’s something alien scanners can figure something out.
Hey have I mentioned recently that I have an Amazon referral link? If you make that link your Amazon bookmark, it will help me continue buying things I probably don’t need, like this sword. Look, I’m not some weirdo with “too many knives” but I thought a sword or two would be kind of fun to have. As it is, I’ve taken it out of the scabbard a few times and thought, 1) Neat, 2) This is heavier than I thought it would be, and 3) medieval people who actually used swords would probably have benefited from flash in the pan trendy exercise equipment like this wrist trainer. (Insert joke about all the single knights not needing a wrist trainer.)
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Flame head flew to Earth in the Millennium Falcon?
She may not look like much …
Torchie looks great, what are you talking about?
Panel 5 Cockpit of the Falcon.
Was a joke
If Syd knew that she might go with them voluntarily.
It’s going to get more complicated since they’ve come to the attention of the big boys….
Also, Deus hasn’t sprung HIS surprises yet.
I’m still trying to figure out how he PAID for his alien tech….
If I’m remembering correctly DaveB said that he initially thought Deus might pay with rare substances, but on reflection, it’s more likely he paid by selling Earth media entertainment. Basically paying with “exotic” (from the alien’s perspective) porn.
Yep. But it’s funnier to think of aliens heavily invested in the Family Matters series. Or Knight Rider.
Look, everyone like the Golden Girls. Everyone.
Truth. Especially Deadpool.
ALF, 3rd Rock, Mork and Mindi, Alien, Close Encounters, ET, Predator… all popular comedic satire in the wider galaxy.
Mightbe he did pay it by providing the aliens with unlimited access to soap series, similar to the Orville where the aliens were bribed with 400 years worth of “the kardashians” to replace the human zoo?
Clothed monkey documentaries (voiced by Richard Attenborough)
“And here we see the beta male during his food foraging in the communal area after he has been labouring for value trade items the previous 1/3rd of a cycle. hereafter he will present the food to the alfa female who will process it in the designated area for them to consume later.”
Didn’t he take a suitcase of rare metals with him before going to Fracture station?
Nah, it was full of exotic food stuffs, like nachos, guacamole, and bean burritos.
Laptops and copies of the Sims.
The original series of The Sims only…The No CD Patch is something he sold them later to get it to run on their computers. Normal people on Earth who run on Windows 10 can’t play the game without it; pretty much with the same with The Sims 2.
Considering the level of tech on Fracture I doubt that rare metals are very rare there. So it was probably just Earth porn in fancy packages. That sort of thing should be better for trading.
To be fair and this has been discussed a few times, most civilizations between the barter phase and I am now an eternal immortal being beyond comprehension so I am actually post scarcity so only amusements have value; is going to want some form of exchange that doesn’t result in needing to produce something to get something; even if only taken as abstract or some encrypted specially made medium with layers of complex anti-counterfeiting measures; an agreed upon currency just makes exchanges easier.
It has value because the society you are trading in says it has value. Honestly that’s how rare metals work too; they don’t have any actual inherit value other than humans like shiny things and if that shiny thing is hard to come by they view it as having an even higher value.
So barter just feels like a step backwards and would alienate societies that want to trade but don’t produce oddities like entertainment or craft projects but can give their time and effort for a job and want something in exchange that they can then exchange for things they want with a SET VALUE not a subjective one.
That’s probably true, but it does require that the societies involved be sufficiently familiar with each other’s produce and economy to agree on the relative value of their trading counters. Unless the tourist trade is a lot more economically active on Earth than we’ve seen so far, that doesn’t yet appear to be the case. So until Earth manages to establish where its various currencies stand on the interstellar (or even just Fracture) exchange rate, Deus has to do it the inefficient way without currency to act as a ‘solvent’ – thus helping to speed up said establishment.
Deus is frugal enough to follow what I call The Cillian Principle, which states, “Don’t pay for anything you can get for free.”
“… aka, steal.”
Sydney is gonna return right about now and they gonna try grab her I guess because she looks weak.
She managed to take the Stasis Pod off of that one alien, so they know she’s not as weak as she seems
Gotta agree that Sydney is the likely target.
If they catch her by surprise without her shield up she could go down pretty quickly from a stun shot or equivalent… I wonder if they’d work out her glasses, cos even if Sydney doesn’t know how to send messages I imagine Cora could probably track her by it.
Sydney is the likely target because she’s the main protagonist.
And the second worst they could chose, before even factoring he orbs
Maxima: “We have been in touch with the kidnappers and are close to negotiating a reasonable fee they will pay to return Sydney”
Susie: “Don’t you mean ransom that the aliens will pay?”
Maxima: *smirk*
Will BE paid
Urgh!!! Kill my own joke
No, you got it right the first time: Torchie and co are willing to pay Archon to take Sydney back
Problem is, Archon isn’t sure they want her back, hence the need to negotiate :P
c.f. “The Ransom of Red Chief” by O. Henry
A classic!
Was going to mention this classic as well – here’s an online version of Ransom of Red Chief for anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure of reading it.
There is a scene like that in “YAFGC”, where an elf got nabbed by a Green Hag for her dinner, he kept telling bad Hag puns until she just picked him up, walked back to his friends, dropped him and basically said “This is your elf.” and walked off again
I hope they don’t end up with Halo, she’s already had 2 solo adventures in space and that’d be a little too one-sided (and cliched). I’d like to see the rest of the team get some screen time and enjoy some storytelling with all the other characters Dave’s developed instead of having them just following Halo’s plotline everywhere.
Would bs funny if they grabbed harem.
Hey boss, something’s hinky about this one. Just went back to pickup the food trays, and shes got on new clothes.
So, what’s the issue?
We did not give her any.
Maybe that ‘s her power?
And hair… and optical eye assistant device
I think that that’s showing that Hench Wench was the one they grabbed.
No.
Hench Wench is the one they’re currently planning to grab.
And, as much as I don’t like her, these plans must come to not.
These aliens must not be allowed to leave Earth with any superhuman cargo.
come to “naught” – naught being nothing, or zero.
The Dabbler Version would be “naughty” and have a different spelling of “come”.
Except Sydney, IMO.
The only way I’d think they could nab her would be to knock her unconscious, and once she regained consciousness, she’d be quite able to get away and to get back to Earth
Apparently humans are not the biggest deviance and the Galaxy. Though I’m sure we place rather High
It’s not the mid-combat banter that is the prob;em. It’s the stopping to pose for the press that would be the issue. Besides everybody has to mentally recover from the side effects of that last punch.
I suspect that even with their war mechs Max would still outclass them.
And we know that Sydney does…
Those war mechs look a cass or 3 below the worldkiller tentacle cone lasereye droneships Sydney took care of (in a slight adrenaline/panic phase too). With support of Maxima and her usual unusual on the fly tactics those war mechs would be presented to the invaders with a small note “Fun try, next time we’ll put in some effort” and a cute little ribbon.
That’s what I was thinking. So far, we haven’t seen ANYONE who could really threaten the Big Three: Maxima, Dabbler and Sydney. Hell, Sydney took on an entire alien army on her own! For Max, the only one who seemed a bit of a threat for a moment was Vehemence, and the best he managed to do was give her a bloody nose! And remember Sydney has unlocked less than half her potential powers! It seems to me they are suffering from a bad case of Superman Syndrome here. Unless Dave is setting them up for a fall, that would be interesting. I would love to see them face a real threat.
Mostly good points, but we don’t know whether Sydney faced an alien army or a single battle group or just a single unit – or really whether it is an alien race that is universally hostile (akin to the Borg), or a subset, like the military organization of a species where some members are specifically militarized, and whether they would represent a government/species or something more like mercenaries working for an economic entity
That last line conjured a horrifying notion in my mind. IRS bounty auditors.
Sydney is still handicapped by the “only two powers at one time” problem, (With long term breathing counting as a power if she’s got her shield up!) and being just a squishy human if the shield isn’t up. That means no Superman syndrome for her.
I make it to be somewhere between /3 and 1/4 of her Potential Power Tree. Sydney has slightly less than 40 active nodes (if I count correctly – I use a 6-year old version and memory, so perhaps not) and the Tree has a minimum of 140 nodes (by rough count).
??? keyboard issues? 1/3 and 1/4… sorry about that…
Also When Chrona saw the FULL grid, there where hints it continued beyond
Of course, going by the ‘gamer’ aesthetic that seems to characterise Sydney’s Orb upgrades, she is unlikely to ever get close to filling the grid. She can take any available upgrade, but she won’t get new resources at anywhere near a sufficient rate for taking every upgrade to be a possibility. (Yes, I know she got three points for the skirmish with the Invaders of Alar. To continue the gaming metaphor, that’s an encounter well above her Challenge Rating that she was lucky to be able to cash out from before it killed her, and since she stumbled into it solo she got a Party’s worth of XP.)
It’s just the genre I think. It’s more slice of life and comedy than anything, don’t think you’re going to get danger like you’re describing since that kind of drama isn’t the focus.
Well, there WAS that demon Dabbler is actively hiding from
Max singlehandedly took down a Fel cruiser. A war mech wouldn’t cause her to break a sweat. (If she could sweat.)
They are respectively:
The Iron Giant in combat mode, by Ted hughes. Pretty dangerous, and, in the movie at least, capable of pretty big blasts that look not quite big enough for nuclear explosions, yet big enough to easily one-shot a battleship.
The second one is a God Warrior, by Hayao Miyazak. They are extremely dangerous and have a mouth beam that just straight up delivers a nuke. They are an allegory for a nuclear war and in Nausicaa managed to destroy all of human civilization in something known as the seven days of fire, where they pretty much destroyed the earth in 7 days.
Whether they are a threat to Max I don’t know, but at least in their own books, they are a significant force.
Thanks! I’m unfamiliar with God Warrior.
I thought that was Gigantor but couldn’t remember him having a nose laser.
what about the third one?
behind the Iron Giant, and on it’s right. Has a staff looking thing shooting a purply beam and six eyes on it’s head?
I think that’s Eson the Searcher from Marvel Comics. First appearance in Eternals volume 9. Eson is a Celestial, a cosmic entity.
He shows up in the MCU Guardians of the Galaxy, in a clip showing off how the Power Stone can wipe out planets.
The war mechs would be presented as scrap metal. The note would say, “Thanks for the raw materials. Here you can have the crew compartment back. I know it used to be larger, but it got damaged when Max removed it from the bot.”
The fun part about your reply is that both the Iron Giant and the God Warrior are autonomous lifeforms (for a given value of “living”). They don’t have a crew compartment… Max up there just removed their BRAINs
Doubt syd allows max to scrap em all.
Her geeky nerd heart demands atleast one funtional Mecha for private usage.
Speaking of which does anyone remember which comic Sydney told Maxima about destroying the monster Kaiju from what’s your names home world? I really want to go back and re-read Maxima’s reaction to that
It starts here: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-739-swear-jar-ii-a-filthy-boogaloo/
As allways, nice references.
But… I think that Max outclass even those mechs. Not sure of the other two. But she definetly outclass the Iron Giant. At least momentarely.
He survived a nuke. But he was… Unasembeled? [weird words are weird. Why does this language have such a weird spelling?] for some weeks before he even tried to reasemble itself.
Wich… to think of it. Iron Giant might have an aproximately resistance to damage as Marvel’s Mjölnir and he like. So… How do you beat it for good besides desmantel and contain?
Nukes are really hot. Like… multiple times the surface of the sun.
A “God Warrior” from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind I think
Yep, that’s what I thought when I saw it
Yep those three are (From left to right
Eson the Searcher … a Celestial …(https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Eson_(Earth-616)
The Iron Giant … Battle Form
A God Warrior from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (One of many responsible for the seven days of fire … speculated to be a last resort bio weapon)
Don’t think that Maxima would be able to hold her own against a Celestial of any type, The Iron Giant … Maybe, The God Warrior … based on what is shown in the Anime … Maybe …
Would be a fight worth seeing.
Well, we know the Iron Giant had some serious damage done to the brain pan, as well as being partially dismantled by a simple train impact. While I don’t think we can posit on the durability of the raw material it’s composed of in X-ray spectrum blasts, so it’s possible that Max can still easily destroy parts of it.
Fun fact: you can actually ‘break’ a nuclear bomb with a kinetic strike. Getting them to go nuclear is actually very difficult, and damage or misalignment of the explosives around the uranium/plutonium core turns it to a low yield dirty bomb instead of a nuclear one. Assuming the bomb was set to detonate at a specific altitude/location, the Iron Giant slamming into it in high altitude would have ‘defused’ the bomb rather than trigger a nuclear detonation.
That… makes a lot of sense.
The US has dropped a nuke or three by accident without them going big badda boom. From airplanes, even.
Yep. Goldsboro, North Carolina, for one.
Atlanta, Georgia. As in Atlanta is within the blast radius if it is still functional and can’t be retrieved from a mixture of reason one of which is sinking too deep into mud.
Correction: Savannah, lost somewhere in the Sound, and sources waffle on if it had a real core or a dummy core. The plane was headed for Atlanta.
Even then… does Hench Wench get only the powers of supers? If she gets in a contact with these aliens would she pick up their traits like acid… umm… belch? Other creatures like vampires and ware-things?
Gods, what kind of transformation would she get if she contracted to a team of different ware-creatures. Just ability to transform into each or chimera combos?
Canonically, I believe she’s only mentioned supers. So the going theory, I think, is that for instance, she would not get anything from Sydney or Dabbler. I don’t think we know for sure at this point if there’s something like the X-gene that could be what she copies or whatever, but she may not get anything from aliens, weres, vampires, or magic users.
The wording is she gets the powers of the supervillain she works for.
There was no other limit on that that, so there is no reason to believe that it’s established whether or not working for a succubus like Dabbler (or other magical being) would transfer.
I suspect it would, since her power is in effect making a hand-waving copy of another power. It’s not TAKING the power from the other, so it’s more like it’s creating the power for herself as a copy of a power she’s seen, with the psych limit that she has to be working for the person.
However, we’ve only had a single announcement about the power, so there is no “canon” for what, exactly, its limitations are. She could even be lying. (She could be accessing THEIR power based on THEIR psych limit of believing she was contracted to them…)
If Hench-Wench became a public servant of a multi-specie conclave, the Sheriff as a for instance, would she have the attributes of hundreds of persons?
Until the next election.
So does the hand held medical device always make that noise or is it just laughing at Red? lol
That’s the first thing that came to mind. The heal ray sounds like a sitcom laugh track in my head now.
It’s not LOL, it’s LOO.
I think it is supposed to sound like the medical tricorder on the classic Star Trek.
Why did i read Garrus instead of Garamm?
Because while you should always be yourself, unless you can be Batman – if you can’t be Batman, being Garrus is not a bad second option.
They haven’t seen what Sydney can do to warmechs yet, have they?
or that in Earth’s culture supers vs giant robots is such a trope that surely every super above a D class is not only expecting it at some point but prepared for it.
*you go for the leg joints, I’ll aim for the targeting mechanism*
And then there’s those for whom “aim for the center of mass and turn it to slag” is about all the planning they need. Targeting the weak spots isn’t necessary when you’ve got enough power to treat everything as a weak spot.
The C and B classes are denting the manifolds, the A’s are ripping limbs off, the S’s are blasting them into slag, and the Omegas’ have created decorative centerpieces out of them.
It’s hard to tell the actual size from the picture, but a decent sword that approximate size shouldn’t weigh much more than two and a half pounds, three at most.
I totally read the bottom text with zoidbergs voice
It only the comments permitted ‘likes’.
… and edits.
IF ONLY the comments could be quickly ‘liked’ without Name and Email verification.
Yes….Zoidberg voice. Should I read all of Garamm’s dialog that way?
“You still have Zoidberg. You ALL still have Zoidberg!”
oh no, oh dear, oh no.
Ok I know one of those 3 mechs is the Iron Giant, and I think one is from a ghibli film, but I have no idea for the third…
The first one could be the megadeus known as Big Fau from the series Big O.
I think it looks like a Celestial from the Marvel Universe.
Pretty sure the one on our left is a Celestial
If that things a celestial then the other two are a moot point and earth is fucked without so much as a thanks for all the fish.
his name is Eson the Searcher.
Galactus got fended off on a regular basis, what makes Eson any tougher?
Historically speaking, even great two handed swords wouldn’t be more than 5lbs. (2kg) That number is specifically for German zweihander swords (which literally translates to Two Handed, so a sword that’s *long* enough that you have to use two hands for balance reasons) An Arming sword, (modern term agreed upon to mean “Dedicated one hand only) would be 2.5lbs (1.1kg) Weight doesn’t have a lot to do with how many hands are used, that’s based on the length of the sword and where the point of balance is on it (For instance a Bastard/Hand-and-a-Half sword is just an Arming sword with a grip long enough to fit two hands on it. Length wise and weight wise they’re othwerwise identical)
My point is, sword weights are completely overestimated and no one used a *Sword* over 5lbs. You’re gonna be swinging that thing around literally all day on a battlefield, you want it to be as light as possible.
That’s what I like the most of magick weaponry and armour in the ttrpg Exalted.
Artifact are not light. The two mainly used magical materiales are Jade, and Orichalcum. The second being a “destiled” solar light and gold.
These are very dense but, more importantly, are nigh indistructible and capable of slight flight. So the blade, shield, armor, etc is light to the owner but really heavy to the rest of the world. That way, exalteds can wield FF VII Bustersword tipe blades one handed even with human strenght and weight and still pack a punch worth it’s size. [For contrast, steel swords deal 3 damage. “Regular” magical blades deal 6 damage. Steel 2handed deal 4 damage. Magical 2handed deal 12 damage and are Berserk’s Dragonslayer size.]
Not sure about western versions, but the Chinese two handed swords are really wielded with the whole body rather than the arms – so for example when you want to slash with it you generate the power from a turning waist, rather than swinging it just with your arms – because at four or five pounds (similar weight to the zweihander you mention and about five feet long total), with the balance only a few inches from the hilt they’re still too heavy and awkward to use effectively any other way.
There is a technique for really big swords that uses them with the hole body. In spanish is “montante” I belive. Basicaly you whield them like a ropedart more than like a sword. More flashy than useful but still useful if you are alone in a 3m wide streat.
Pretty much any combat swordsmanship is a full body exercise. Actual technique would depend on the sword type, armor worn, the opponent being faced and so on. My favorite is the people who used the larger European swords. The entire sword from point to pommel was used as a striking surface. Kicks, punches and body checks were just part of the fight. It is still a heavy item but some advantage is gained from not having to hold it only at one end.
And don’t forget that most boys in a castle/fortification would be doing sword and shield practice about 4 hours a day minimum, often up to 6 hours, depending on their academic load and other duties. This practice is essential for building battle endurance…
Many of the heavier sword types were also often made with the blade blunt for a distance from the hilt, so that the wielder could grip it with their off hand further up for leverage (especially in a parry) and manoeuvrability at closer quarters. There are times when you want the full reach of the long blade, and there are times when you want (effectively) a shorter blade with a really long grip!
@DaveB: The sword you linked, while fancy, is impractical for real use. The 10inch handle is designed for two handed use, but the blade is only shortsword lenght, sized for stabbing. The slight curve and single cutting edge makes it bad at stabbing.
Yeah, basicaly. But it would be better than nothing in a fight, still. Wich a lot of “fancy” swords cant say.
If the handle would be a bit shorter, it would be a nice one-handed knife. Not all short swords have to be stabbing for. Some people just prefere the chopping power. And that one has a good one for it’s size. [If properly sharpened.]
Perhaps, but not for very long… Made by a professional sword maker… with Damascening that bad? I really doubt they know what they’re doing (even if they get paid to do it – hence ‘professional’).
PROPER Damascening should be consistent and produce a fairly regular pattern. See those dark spots? That’s places where the maker got NO Damascening at all… A professional bladesmith would consider this one a failure.
Plus (and now to get LOTS of disagreement), that’s a saber, not a sword. Swords are (technically) straight blades sharp on both sides. Yes, I know this is an Eastern design and I’m using a Western definition, but they’re not consistent on which is which either…
As a knifemaker for over 15 years, you’re wrong about basically everything when it comes to “damascus”. While it may have, historically, been done as a way of improving the performance of low quality ores, today it is entirely cosmetic and offers no real performance advantages. There is a multitude of patterns and as long as the welds are good, the various patterns work just fine. The one possible exception would be the modern recreations of so-called “Wootz” steel, but even there, the purported performance benefits are largely unsupported by any evidence.
Re: professional swordsmith considering it a failure; it’s only a failure if no one buys it. DaveB did, so it ain’t.
I think it’s cute how these two think they’re getting off this planet in anything except handcuffs.
the link for the sword is taking me to an 8 inch chef knife….
As to all of us. That is the “sword”
It’s a pretty and purple chef’s knife though. That is apparently heavier than expected.
It occurs to me that Hench Wench, assuming her abilities are “People who hire her” because how could her powers know to only work on “Bad guys” who hire her….
If she went to work at Archon….directly under Max and Hiro and the rest…
Would she….be the strongest character in this comic?
Maybe not. She wouldn’t be hired by Max and Hiro, but by Archon itself. So depending on how her powers work that could mean she’s been hired by either Adrianna or General Falk (neither of whom are supers). I’m guessing there’s enough wriggle room to stop her being stupidly powerful even by Archon standards. Anyway she comes across as a bit of a rules lawyer, and that isn’t a sensible attitude if you’re being put through basic training by the military.
I guess it just comes down to exactly how her power works. But I can see the best possible version of her power working VERY well for her if she joined Archon lol.
Some of those mechanics will probably be demonstrated in the next beat of the battle.
It’s… it’s that a “Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa” reference?
Damn, I might love this comic much more than I do now.
So… Garamm turned out to be pretty cute.
Awesome touch working in the flaming city scene from Nausicaa/Valley of the Wind, recalling the demon kaiju from their “Seven days of fire” apocalypse. Iron Giant spotted and is that a Marvel comic Celestial on the far left?
Tails are always the best option!
You haven’t gone off the deep end until you buy a utility spear to go along with your utility hatchet, utility kukri and utility gladius. All of it survival grade, not decorative swords. I’ve gone off the deep end.
Those water effects from the broken pipe ends in panel one had me really confused for a while, especially in conjunction with the regenerator having a similar effect. I know at least one other redditor thought they were a broken power line.
Maybe hybridize it more like the strip 232 effects? https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-232-test-your-equipment-before-fielding-it/
One of my fave scenes of the 90s deadpool series..
https://i.imgur.com/0iOJNis.png
deadpool is fighting wolverine while, and Wolverine spouting a whole load of talk while leaping a short distance. two on lookers (ilaney & Dr Bong) comment on it. Dr Bong putting out that he thinks its some sort of latent mutant power..
pretty sure reed richards went on about how some people are able to fit several minutes of speech into the time it takes to throw a single punch as well..
You never heard my mom and grqndma go at it. To get a word in edgewise was like threading a runnung sewing machine
Dude, props for that title!
“I’m certain some of these people could knock down half the city if they really tried”
1) That’s why none of them are going full-out, and the uniforms are trying to de-escalate.
2) Hoo boy are you underestimating them. Did you pay attention to the footage of the Fel Cruiser getting casually slapped down? Never mind Sydney and whatever was squatting on the Alari homeworld, because you probably haven’t seen that.
3) Orbital support wouldn’t help. I wouldn’t rate your chances all that high if you had a Death Star in orbit around Jupiter to threaten with. A Magog World Ship bearing down on the Earth might have a chance.
—
And to all the people talking about Superman Syndrome: Superman has a problem because of 2 things:
1) He *doesn’t use* most of his powers because they’d break the suspence, and the writers either aren’t good enough to make things interesting or just forget powers. So far, the supers here have been using their powers relatively efficiently, and not having selective amnesia for plot purposes. They’ve been actively trying not to escalate, but Max has never hesitated to use her super-speed to solve something without a good reason (Such as the fight at the restaurant, which she was basically using as a team training excercise until Vehemence started up)
2) Clark Kent is a *really boring character*. If you took away his powers he’d be even more boring. If you took away this casts powers, you could still have a decent sitcom with them.
I feel like this is a pretty unfair take on Superman in general. There’s literally a TVTropes article named after a speech of his, where he talks about how the world is like cardboard to him, and how he always instinctively holds back against his opponents, except when they can take it. (And there are, indeed, foes who can take it.)
And superman’s exact power depends not just in the setting/continuity, but yes to some extent the writer. His powerset is, mostly, consistent; flight, invincibility, superstrength, superspeed, ability to breathe in space (usually), cold breath, laser eyes, supersenses including xray vision. But the extent of how invincible, how strong, how fast, how sensitive, is determined by the setting. There are settings where he’s unmatched in those, but by and large, more and more modern works have toned down these aspects to be weaker than they were at their peak levels.
Yet the point of superman is never that he is too strong; a driving point of superman is the desire to inspire good in others, encourage them, help them. This is not always present, but it is frequent both in the comics and in adaptions like films. (Films have done things like the famous Jor-El quote around ‘great capacity for good, just need to show them the way’, and also things like portraying him as a working-man superhero, who helps the common people.)
He doesn’t use most of his powers because he uses the amount he thinks is needed, and his use of powers isn’t always ‘fighting the latest supervillain threat’. Plus, he does have the very famous weakness (of varying effect again by continuity and to some extent writer) of kryptonite, so his powers come with a drawback.
Also, Clark Kent is not a boring character. He is, in his own rights, without a single drop of powers, without the use of his superpowers, a genuinely brilliant reporter, in most continuities. He’s good at investigating and writing compelling journalism. You can write a good story about a journalist investigating their latest story, without the need of superpowers. Because that kind of thing can in fact, be interesting and compelling as a story.
Plus, Superman is not as simple a character as people generally tend to think. He’s not only Clark Kent, not only Superman, not only Kal-el, those are all facets of him, but he’s more than that. He does a lot of good, but he doesn’t singlehandedly solve all of humanity’s problems; he tries to help them solve those issues, but still takes time off for himself. Depending on continuity and writer, again (I should note that any character who has existed for nearly 100 years and has been written nonstop over that long of a time will have this issue, it is not unique to Superman and Batman is no different in this ‘depending on writer/continuity’), at least.
Orbital support will help, barely.
Dabbler’s off panel tie with Max combined with her reaction to Vehemence(“Lets see if he can regenerate his brain system.”) have strongly suggested that weaponry that can overcome earth’s gravity+pierce some armor(“usually used to shoot down satellites from orbit.”, show off day) requires Max to go full defense. Orbital bombardment carries comparable amounts of power, because it gets it’s power from the power source that slows down “orbital satellite” shooters.
Also Max can’t get to things in space, because she has shown multiple times the(reduced) need to breathe(she can ofcourse use her fingerblast, but that is easier to deal with if they’re fired light seconds away).
Max could ofcourse also speck in super speed and dodge your bombardment if she has reason to suspect you don’t have enough cloaking technology to make them invisible from her perspective.
Sydney has shown on the Alari homeworld that orbital bombarding her at least requires her shield to try, so you could probably take her down with two closely timed shots, if she’s on the ground, but why would she be on the ground?
Sydney could actually reach you to take you down, Sydney can detect most cloaked devices, Sydney has shown to be able to ignore normal shielding and Sydney doesn’t have to focus as badly as Maxima does, so she would probably be close to your making orbital bombardment impossible.
The most help you could get from orbital bombardment is holding NYC, Washington DC, silicon valley, Tokyo, Shanghai and Paris hostage in return for a peaceful surrender(multiple cities is needed, because the team has 5 people who can stop orbital attacks.
Not gonna lie…it took me a solid minute to remember that Hench Wench was working for Earth’s supervillains and not associated with the aliens who started this all. I initially was confused why the comic cut to a future scene where Hench Wench was being bitchy on a return flight…and then I remembered and realized it wasn’t a “return flight” for her. I’m just glad I was able to figure it out before reading Dave’s post so I didn’t feel like a complete idiot…just half of one. :P
Ha, ha, ha. I think lizard guy thinks being tail-less is a disability.
As it happens, bullets don’t have a method of staying airborne. They fall as fast as everything else. They just have usually already hit something long before they have time to fall all the way to the ground. Mythbusters did an episode where they dropped a bullet at the same time as firing a gun horizontally from far away, and got them both to hit the ground at roughly the same spot and within a few frames of each other.
Unless I’m misreading you, and what you were saying actually was “How does this bullet reach anything its shooting at before hitting the ground.”
How did “Hench Wench” get back aboard their space craft so quick?
Are there 2, or more, flaming fire heads among the crew?
How did Torchy go from being healed, back aboard the ship they never had, and back to lying prone being prepped for a tail-addon?
It’s amazing what you can do with comics and clever time-shifting!!!!!!! Just think, those poor buggers who only write prose have to actually work to make you imagine potential if-only scenes, comic authors get to draw pictures for us illiterate peons!
Knocking down the city by class/rank
F: not happening
D: years
C: Weeks to months
B: Days
A: hours to days
S: seconds to minutes (depending on the size of the city and what type of power their high rank is)
G/Omega: *What city, all I see are the ruins of a lost civilization*…or a hole
(note: never mess with particle manipulators*
self correction: for a major city and if the S class is primarily super strength and the city has no major structural weak point(s) it could take hours to lawn mower back and forth leveling the city blocks.
S-econds to minutes, just hit the ground hard enough to cause earthquake level shockwaves…
that’s what I was thinking of, most major cities have a pretty hollow sub structure with basements, pipelines, subway tunnels, some even supported and having to constantly drain flood waters like New York, Chicago, and Tokyo, and few good ground slams from an S class and the city is collapsing into sink holes.
But take a city like Phoenix Arizona and it…yeah, you might still be right. even if the pounds per square inch rule makes it awkward an S class probably can just keep hitting the ground with their foot, double fists, or the Hulk clap to create strong enough shock waves to effectively level the city in seconds to minutes.
I think Hench Wench code name sjould be double down. Since she effectily doubles the the capability of a group.
DeeDee for short *snickers*
Is Garamm co-pilot of the gang or does having every bone in your body broken make you open for suggestions?
“If we had war mechs or orbital support….”
Then the gloves would come off, and you’d be really, really dead, really, really fast. Sydney dealt with multiple things superior to your “war mechs” that also had orbital support all by herself, and Max has more firepower than that.
If Hench Wench is kidnapped by the aliens and taken off planet, and then gets fired from the mercenary team, what happens to her powers? She would have no way of knowing she’d been fired.
Man I hope this isn’t the last we’re seeing of Hench Wench, she’s such an enjoyable character
That furshulgginer Regenerator sounds like the sound track on “A Charlie Brown Christmas” special.
“loolooloo, looloolooloo, looloo, looloolooloo, loolooloo, looloolooloo. loolooloo, looloolooloo …”
Okay I recognize Iron Giant and an Eternal, what are the other two?
the far left isn’t a robot but Eson the searcher a Celestial from Marvel Comics, the far right is a from Nausicca of the Valley of the Winds, the war god bio-mechs that were used in the final war that polluted the entire world ending all of civilization.