Grrl Power #901 – Apparently you can stop the rock
I know, Sydney asking if Concretia can do marble lends credence to the suspicion that she is or is related to the Marble Maiden, referenced around… uh… hmm. I don’t actually recall. At some point early in the comic. I think.
Oh! There she is. #366. I thought she showed up waaaay before that. Anyway, Sydney was either actually sleuthing or just being chatty.
I always want to write “Mohs scale” as “Moh’s scale” because in my mind, presumably, a guy named “Moh” invented it. Cement Concrete is a six or seven, which surprised me, as I don’t usually think of it as being particularly strong. Well, sure, you can drive and walk and pogo-stick on it, but it’s also the primary component of rubble, so I tend to think of it as being a bit crumbly, especially around the edges.
Still, I wouldn’t want to be punched or elbow dropped by someone with a solid concrete body.
Now, one might think that Sydney is too young to reference the Herculoids or non-Netflix Voltron or Robotech or Sleestaks or Tom Baker Doctor era stuff, but you see, her father is quite the nerd and raised her right, introduced her to a huge library of shows. Anyone with kids under 15 (or I guess anyone reading the comic who isn’t old enough to vote) knows it’s tough to start off on Avatar (the movie), Lord of the Rings, and even stuff like Star Trek Discovery, then try and get them interested in 50 year old British sci-fi, so Sydney’s dad (also named Sydney, if you recall) introduced her to the sci-fi/fantasy catalog in mostly chronological order.
That said, I think Sydney is probably too young (and entirely the wrong gender) to have watched any of those “Young, sexy woman (YSW) who doesn’t realize she’s sexy and is probably a student or a cop, has stripper sister who gets killed so YSW has to go undercover at the strip club, as a stripper of course, in order to solve the case/avenge her sister.” movies, so admittedly it’s a bit of an odd reference for her. Still, the subgenre of femsploitation where a woman is forced to become a stripper is common enough that it would get referenced in other media like comics, sit-coms, MST3K/Rifftrax, etc., so it’s not like she couldn’t have stumbled across the idea before.
Evidently I should keep pimping the incentives, because people who swing by the comic on days other than the first post of the month don’t always catch them, and it would be irresponsible of me not to point out that there is a modest collection of nude pinups over at Patreon.
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Wait, could SHE be the green marble girl they were looking to recruit way back when at the first group briefing?
“Marble’s too soft”, per her own comment above. Although that does not preclude the possibility that she dabbled with it, before coming to that conclusion. But also see the author’s comments in his blog above.
Remember though that Marble Maiden is a vigilante, whereas Concretia is working for a villain group. That said though there is no reason why a vigilante would do well against villains, so it is entirely reasonable to postulate that she fell foul of them and they ended up capturing her body, and forced her to work for them.
Which would play well with this scene, given that a vigilante would likely be embarrassed to have fallen from grace. So it would not be unnatural to try and distance herself from that by changing her name. And now avoiding any line of questioning which might link Marble Maiden to Concretia.
The vibe from the two characters feels different though, so I would not jump to that conclusion. But retain an open mind to the possibility.
Marble Maiden literally appeared in just one panel so I’m not sure just how much of her ‘vibe’ we actually know about.
We know she takes a lot of selfies.
And I think that might be the true connector here. What if she only uses the marble look for her selfies but uses a harder mineral/rock for the actual fighting.
then any criminal she caught would be able to tell people there was someone else.
In all seriousness I doubt there is any connection between the two, its like assuming Kamala Khan is the illegitimate child of Reed Richards.
… She’s not?
She’s certainly not an acknowledged heir.
No, Kamala Khan is not the illegitimate heir of Dr. Reed Richards. She is wholly from a muslim family, and is mostly human with some latent Inhuman blood that was activated by the detonation of the Terrigen Bomb.
Was a joke
If she is limited to the materials available on the scene it would make sense to use marble for her body while stopping a bank robbery. Lots of marble decorating bank lobbies. The one look we’ve had of Marble Maiden has a lot of marble in the background.
I think Concretia is doing some deliberate masking – the rest of her body shape is baseline (super) human, but she’s put on a very blocky face, probably as a form of built-in mask. Probably easier than bringing along another bit of cloth to deal with.
Good point.
That could actually work. She was operating as a vigilante, and the Bad Guys(tm) managed to get the drop on her by tracking down her real body. Imagine her power works by something like “possessing” the slab of whatever and animating it, while her flesh body remains behind. Anyway, from then on she’s forced to work for the Bad Guys(tm).
Which also suggests maybe concretia intends to use sydney to ‘buy back’ her body
I don’t think so; Concretia’s face, hair, and clothing are always the same, and Marble Maiden has a completely different face, hairstyle and outfit.
Yup.
My theory for a while was that Concretia WAS the Marble Maiden. And the reason why she says marble’s too soft is because… She lost. And she lost bad. BUT, Concretia also appeared as Concretia in the super brawl. That would mean that either she lost before the brawl and somehow Kevin was still able to recruit her to join the brawl, or she was recruited before her capture and made an intentional choice to bring the Concretia identity to the super brawl rather than her Marble Maiden identity, which would require juggling 3 different identities.
Overall though, I don’t think Concretia is the Marble Maiden. I think they’re just 2 different people with somewhat similarish looking powers.
You know, it’d be a really interesting spin-off to see Concretia and her story play out.
I’m imagining a very well-written side story of some personal revenge quest against the people who took her body hostage.
That being said, aside from this charming banter, we have little to go on regarding her personality and code.
I’m wondering just what other surprises Dave has planned for Concretia. Perhaps when her flesh body is rescued she turns out to be 80 years old. Maybe she’s a handicapped veteran of Desert Storm who discovered her power when she was buried under rubble after an IED explosion. Could even be someone who served with Maxima. Lots of interesting possibilities.
Maybe she is really Olivia, and the reason no one has realized she’s missing is because her body is still going to work and living her life thanks to someone with possession powers or puppetry threatening to make her body kill its self if she tries anything. She may not even realize her body is still doing that too as they have forced her astral body to do jobs hundreds of miles away so she can’t try anything.
Well Sydneys fate is well and truly set in stone.
Hey what do you call Concretias thong?
Stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Ro, look what you’ve started. You’ve got everyone doing it now!
My job is not over until I have made you do it too.
He is just a stone’s throw away
You shouldn’t take Concretia for granite.
Do you have a concrete reason?
Well morter reason to do it
Death first! I will not flintch in not succumbing to your puns.
I mean flinch….
DAMMTI! I’m infected now!
My corruption spreads. Just as planned. Just as punned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfsTk5i7mPw
Shoulda used the Joker version, more funner :P
Dangit I hate to admit it but you’re right.
https://youtu.be/ryagZLj1h9g?t=36
I love Batman’s smug smile at the end.
Batman might like being compared to Bugs Bunny. :)
You know the funny thing? Batman had a crossover with Looney Tunes, where he had a fight against Elmer Fudd, and Elmer Fudd held his own quite well, and I think they wound up teaming up to go after a psychopathic Bugs Bunny who teamed up with the Joker.
I might be wrong about that last part though. It’s been a while since i read it and I might have mixed that part up with some fanfic.
Concretia is certainly spathic; she’s stone, and she has excellent cleavage.
Concretia may not be a villain, but she is definitely a Pyrite.
Spathic! I remember that one from Lady Slings the Booze by Spider Robinson, Chapter 3: “And if you ever want to tickle the Lady, tell her she’s ‘spathic.’ It’s a geologist’s term for rocks; it means, ‘having good cleavage.’ ” Copyright 1992 (28 years ago!) by Spider Robinson.
If I remember correctly, there was a Major Miner involved, and the protagonist had to imitate Rocky from the Rockford Files, so the theme applies. :)
Kinda like Sergeant Major Major in “Catch 22”, his rank was Sergeant, and, because the officers got confused, they promoted him to Major: Major Major Major (because the guy’s father was a drunk idiot)
Art thou aggregated? Cement or die!
He’s a fissure of men.
…. so it’s in a literal buttCRACK?
More of a crevasse. DAT CREVASSE.
More graduates of Top Pun Academy? Alert the Pungeon Master!
It spreads like a pundemic.
What’s that pungent smell?
now i can see her geting captured concreteia gets her body back and as shes walking by syd BAM if orbs are bound in stone [weak stone at that point] sheidl up protecting syd and concreteia.
So… Concretia is not such a hard ass.
TBF, it’s not the hard-ass’ fault.
…
(Get it? Asphalt??)
That’s concrete for you. You put it in a place and wait and wait for it to set up. And then, just when you think it is all perfect, some kid (Sydney) comes along and puts fingers prints and flowers in the surface to make it purty.
I made a glass reinforced concrete canoe at university in the ’80s. No! really! It won awards. People laugh at my collection of cups for the first ever European Concrete Canoe Championships. I like to think that I was ahead of my time :-)
That sounds like so much fun.
Lots of US engineering colleges still do concrete canoe competitions, it’s a great practical exercise in design and constructability.
There’s actually a long history of concrete ships, including some the US Navy used in WWI and WWII. Ultimately though, they have too many disadvantages to be practical.
They were awesome attrition units for their time.
What are the disadvantages? No rot or rust sounds pretty good.
And here is where we demonstrate why blackmail is a really bad way to get loyalty. She is only minimally ‘loyal’ to whoever holds the blackmail, and in this case the blackmailer has all the problems with keeping a human body around. There is the option of keeping such a conscript under full 24/7 watch like Hydra did in the MCU, but then you get more than half of an origination’s resources watching your own conscripts. And having conscripts watch other conscripts only multiplies the ongoing eff-up.
And I realized that in this case, there is also the possibility of that she might be able to fully abandon her flesh, and exist and a ghost who can posses and shape rocks. Or contact some magic user who can find and summon her original body to get it away from the blackmailer.
(a) There is only one way to find out if she can survive after her body dies.
(b) She appears to lack a sense of pain (at least from the puppet), so may also lack other tactile senses.
C) she might have a time or distance limit for seperating ghostform from body.
D) the badguys might have magical support which bound a watcher to her astral body and if she attempts betrayal they blow up her original body
And Concretia’s current predicament, ladies and gentlemen, is why having powers based on astral projection sucks big time and gives you a huge liability. If you wish to have possession abilities, always base them on telepathy/clairsentience or your body turning intangible, never on seperating it from your consciousness.
Technically speaking, astral projection-style powers are not necessarily mutually exclusive with telepathy-styled powers. You could theoretically have a conscious body that has a conscious astral projection, maintaining consciousness in both forms at the same time. (Think kinda like Harem’s power, but instead of a full second body, the second body is astral in nature. A power like that is fully viable.)
But most commonly, astral projection powers do imply the original body is unconscious with the consciousness in the astral projection, yes.
Now Sydney has her chance to help a villain have a Redemption Arc. I wonder if they are still listening in on her conversation ever since she try to call Maxima for help
If she didn’t actually break the collar thing, it may well still be active, and likely has a GPS locator in it, so there is a decent chance of that. Of course they had their own problems at the moment, but Max honestly, between Max and Dabbler even Hench Wench shouldn’t be too big a deal to step on.
or the collar band snapping sets off an alarm, like a police radio’s “sideways” switch
Oh ho, holding your body hostage, I see. Well now, can you tell me anything about that? We can probably help you out, and it is kinda our job…
Also… kidnapping Sydney is a bad idea on SO many levels.
Not the least of which is getting Dabbler and Maxima pissed off at you.
Yeah, that does seem to be the way the conversation’s probably headed.
If the kidnappers have not managed to come up with a way to put a wire on Concretia, either directly or indirectly, and she knows it, it shouldn’t be too long before she’s part of team Archon. I mean, I’m sure it’ll take a story arc to make it happen, but that could be the next arc.
If they have managed to come up with a way to wire her, she’s probably going to be in trouble for giving up as much info as she has – unless they’ve chosen to make her think they can’t so they have a leg up on her – in which case this gets interesting.
As far as I understand it, from a legal perspective, a contract made against duress is void. If Concretia is only part of the LLC because they have her body and have threatened her if she doesn’t, then Hench Wench should not be getting powers from her.
That said, Hench Wench’s real power limit could be “she has to think she’s getting the power from an employment contract”, rather than “she needs an employment contract.” If that was the case, revealing the bit about Concretia not actually being her employer could be pretty detrimental to her.
… Give how she’s acting in combat, and her apparent awareness of her powers, but not the legal ramifications of forcing someone to sign a contract, could she have forced most or all of the shareholders in her LLC to be shareholders?
Notice that unlike in the rumble, here Concretia doesn’t make a new shell, she simply walks around in it until she has the chance to fix it.
It’s likely HW’s powers are ultimately magic in origin. It’s also likely that just as in RL, people will be considered bound by contract in their dealings until that moment a rules lawyer shows up to point out it’s void, so cancelling the power transfer isn’t reliant on her understanding of small print but her victim’s.
If Hench Wench’s powers are magic, then to me, that implies it could very well be based upon Concretia’s belief that she’s a party to the LLC…
this would be an interesting twist to figure out that Concretia is talking to Sydney and learning a little contract law… Suddenly Wenchie can’t throw rocks anymore, so she realizes Concretia now no longer believes she is Hench Wench’s employer – now, why could that be?
Interesting possibility is that the LLC is a tontine arrangement too — if one of the members of the LLC snuffs it, maybe the contract stipulates the powers are inherited by the LLC and granted in perpetuity to HW…
Sydney: “So, they’ve got your real body locked up in a shipping container or something?”
Concretia: “Plastic prison cell actually. They saw that episode of Last Airbender too.”
“Genre savvy masterminds are the WORST… They’re gonna use the nerve weasels on me, aren’t they?”
“I… have no idea what you’re thinking of, but it sounds bad enough. I’m sorry about this.”
“Hey, you’re… I was going to say ‘stuck between a rock and a hard place’ before I realized that’s really inappropriate.”
“Heh, I’ve heard them all. Check out these abs. Are they chiseled or what?”
[realization blink] “Actually, how does your outfit work?”
“What?”
“They’re clothes, right? I don’t see any purple spandex around for you to make them out of though. Is that what your real body is wearing?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“So where did they come from?”
(Obviously, the comic reason for this is to keep Concretia’s golem form from running around nude, but also gives the possibility of her being able to teleport her real body to her astral form.)
the more I look at them, the more it is clear they are clothes.
That could denote she is doing that subconsciously and doesn’t realize it.
Which is also making me think Sydney has a reason to bring it up as Sydney can do something similar. the Com ball sends out the Light Bee which she can see and hear through and makes a projection of herself; and one upgrade later she was able to teleport to the location of her com ball.
Granted if Concretia can do that she may need to not be in an avatar golem form but have it as a feat of the ghost mode.
Yes, they are her clothing (always has been), but no, they are not made of cloth or fabric
Huh. Now I’m thinking of a vote incentive where Connie is in a sculptor’s workshop making golem statues of herself in various poses and materials. She did say she looks FABULOUS in quartz, so she’s obviously done it.
I support this proposal, hyper-realistic statuary would be a really good non-villainous way to leverage her power for gain.
Are you trying to get Dave to create a Pornolith gallery setting ?
you say that like its a bad thing..
just think of all the guys into statuesque blonds.
Which strip has the nerve weasels in it? I have searched the interwebs high and low and the only reference I can find has … Sydney in it? Prepare the nerve weasels! (That’s painless, right?) Oh my, no!
That is just such golden mad science it’s awesome. Nerve weasels from space! They will eat your brain!
The page with the nerve weasel line is #84 – Double dog dare ya to open it. The scientist in the panel appears to be modeled off Professor Membrane from Invader Zim, but I don’t think there’s anything about a nerve weasel in the show.
IKR?
First rule of kidnapping Sydney is… well, okay, first rule is don’t let Max or Dabbler or Cora or Pixel or any other of her heavy-hitting allies find you. And the second rule is secure her orbs. … maybe reverse the orders of those, I’m not sure. But THIRD rule of kidnapping Sydney is, gag her. She’s either going to make your ears bleed with profanity, use face skills to get info or turn your henchfolk, or subject you to an endless series of SAN checks.
considering Vale (who may or may not be an eldritch) was quick to want to get away from her barrage of questions and dismissal of her glare; her personality truly is a weapon on a cosmic scale.
It’s the third option that does the damage. Can you imagine what would happen if some hapless psychic were to tune in to her head? Being exposed to Sydney’s stream of consciousness is bad enough when it’s only verbal…
depends if the physic is into men or not. lots of shirtless batman images.
Interesting. Does her Concretia body have to be made from one undifferentiated mass or is she hollow? Beyond that, if she can utilize multiple materials, what about harder Mohs scale materials as “bones” and “skin”, with comparatively softer materials for “flesh” and varied types as “muscles”… unless the amount of force she can exert doesn’t really depend on bodily composition and the like… but I’d like to think it maybe is.
Previous appearances would suggest that the hands are solid and the head is hollow, with no evidence yet for any other parts. That may be a product of a minimum shell thickness rather than a deliberate difference: any extremity thinner than twice the shell thickness will be solid, as the shells on both sides touch.
Also suggests that the clothing forms as part of the statue, so it’s some kind of magic.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-216-50-caliber-headache/
Incidentally Dave, Friedrich Mohs devised this scale; singular or plural don’t apply in this case, but if they did it would be Mohs’.
Somewhere, an English teacher is rolling her eyes. It would be Mohs’s if it had any apostrophe (as there was just one of Friedrich Mohs) except the scale has his name truly (much like the Fahrenheit scale) and so doesn’t have an apostrophe at all.
The plural of “Mohs” would be “Mohses”, as in “Keeping up with the Mohses”. Dave was looking at it as a possessive, the proper form of which would be “Mohs’s”. The “s” followed by an apostrophe is only used in the possessive plural, as in “I went over to the Mohses’ house to borrow a cup of agar.”
Granted her tech-glasses have been mentioned, but what happened to those wrist comm-things? and i had to go back and check, but it didn’t seem like anyone was using them in the original “cataloging/greeting” aliens sequence. Seems like the first thing everyone would’ve been putting on in such a situation?
Beyond that, I’d have to agree with several other posts, that considering the current situation, the fact that Sydney was cut-off in mid sentence, would be a big warning sign that something’s going on and that she probably needs backup, ASAP. Better safe then sorry, especially with what else was going on with various groups trying to kidnap Maxima.
Most of the team use collars (or torcs for the guys), which have the same functionality as the wrist things. Theoretically all the time that they are on duty (except when Harem is being naughty), but they are the thing Dave is most likely to forget to draw. So if you don’t see them in a scene, just assume that they have slipped down out of sight, rather than there being any significance to it.
And, yea, cutting all Halo’s coms should be picked up. But in the heat of a battle, with a lot of other high priority monitoring and tactical advice going on, it may not be spotted as quickly as we would hope.
You create alarms for things like that. In fact, I’m assuming that the comms are streaming a steady bit of information for heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, and ANY major jumps get tagged. Zeroing out==hero in heap big trouble.
True, in an ideal world. But don’t forget that Archon is still a very new organisation, so many of the things on their wishlist will not have been implemented yet. And big bureaucratic organisations usually create ‘obvious’ safety measures after experience has shown that their lack is dangerous.*
Not to mention the fact that having an alarm go off every time that a remote signal, on any and every team member, goes down, will very very quickly become annoying to the point that someone will turn it off or rip it out of the wall. Or, as I have seen happen, everyone just ignores it for longer and longer periods.
* For instance parking military aircraft in nice straight rows is pretty. It also makes it easier to get squadrons airborne quickly. Plus maintenance is simplified, if the techs do not have to haul equipment longer distances between aircraft.
But when they all get shot to bits, in situations like Pearl Harbour, the safety measures get bumped up the list of priorities.
The organization might be new. It’s membership most definitely is NOT. And, they’ve got a god-level hacker/sysadmin on staff.
There are ways to prioritize issues. That’s why I specifically used the term “tagged”–it does not necessarily generate an alarm by itself, but whomever is doing that part of overwatch will check it.
Remember, part of ARC-light’s job is to do overwatch. There’s actually an active team when something is going down.
All good points.
Real life example. I started working at the power plant of Sussex I State Prison while they were still under construction. Some genius thought that the master fire alarm panel should be located in the power plant, since we were supposed to be manned 24/7. We would relay every alarm to master control.
In the early days, smoke alarms were set off by dust, spray paint and other atmospheric disturbances – but of course, every alarm was supposed to be checked, right? It was no time at all before the checks stopped taking place. Then a trash can fire (lit cigarette) spread smoke to most of a floor before anyone *really* checked. Easy to put out, except the smoke damage was all out of proportion to if they’d checked with the first alarm instead of waiting until a half-dozen alarms in close proximity went off.
I was wondering that too. I could see them switching her over from bracer to choker as she got more familiar with tech that doesn’t have handy help menus, but how is she supposed to know all the air traffic stuff that the bracer was showing her?
Well, only she and Cora (and maybe Dabbler, because she’s Cora’s friend and also a smart/powerful cookie in her own right) know about them, but Sydney could use her glasses for that, I’m sure…
Except that Sydney decided to hold the Idiot Ball and call for help from Maxima. The one person who was still trapped in a stasis beam when Sydney decided to fly away from the combat in order to leave alien tech unguarded in a city of 8 million people.
Now, we know that the stasis beam isn’t a perfect stasis effect. If it were then we wouldn’t be able to see Maxima because light reflecting off of her could not exit the area in stasis. And Maxima couldn’t just “turn up” her speed and escape it. But there is still clearly a large time dilation, which would make Sydney’s call to her compress into just a fraction of the time it took in the non-stasis world. So Sydney’s cry of “Maxima” would be to Maxima just an incredibly brief bit of unrecognizable sound, assuming it made its way into the stasis field in the first place.
When Sydney left, Maxi was already starting to move
An accurate but irrelevant fact. When Sydney left, Maxima was in a stasis field. Calling for help from literally anyone else would have made more sense. Or just, you know, using the “All Archon” broadcast. We’re apparently expected to believe that the Archon neck-piece communicators are only person to person when we’re been shown they they work like a walky-talky previously.
So much idiocy in this comic as of late…
Someone probably beat me to this but . . .
Hardness in NOT equal to strength. Some of the highest materials on the Mohs scale are actually very brittle, such as diamond and glass.
True, but I don’t think strength is a factor in the materials Concretia can possess. Presumably, the hardness of the material is important for maintaining the form–too hard, and it’s not malleable; too soft, and it’s also not malleable for her powers.
Ahh, now I get Concretia.
*wags tail*
If you can turn her, Sydney, you will deserve extra Yorpie snax.
*Vader voice* If she could be turned, she would be a pebbleful ally.
*stoney face*
But would she rock a lightsabre? If she did it would certainly cement her relationship with Sydney; a first step to building bridges, potentially the bedrock of a lasting friendship. I think that Syddles already likes Concretia despite her stony demeanour, and in her new rescue quest will leave no stone unturned.
Just as long as no one takes her for granite.
I don’t know if it’s been mentioned but I just noticed something about the vote incentive pic. If Sydney is entering the yoga room shouldn’t the lettering on the side of the door facing her be turned the right way? The lettering (facing the right way) would be on the outside of the door not the inside.
Yes, it was mentioned when it first went up, the more people who mention it might get it brought to DaveB‘s attention
Concretia made an error in not immobilizing Sydney’s orbs. I presume they’re more durable than concrete, which means if she can make the orbs revolve around fast enough in the chamber they’re in, eventually they’ll break through. In fact, I’m amazed that slinging them around as blunt impactors wasn’t one of the first things Sydney started doing with them.
Except if Sydney’s pressed against the chair, then the orbs are pressed against the inside of their chamber. They don’t have even a few inches to pick up speed before impact.
they look like they have a few inches, Sydney can move her arms after all, its not a perfect “balance” of tension here.
Also she might be able to just call them to her and they might be able to break the cement, they already have cracked it a little. Cement may be hard (in that it can support weight) but you can smash it head fairly easily, especially with something a lot more durable than it is.
the question is how much force can the orbs produce even without much velocity.
Sydney is pinned, not immobilized
So, if her balls are centralized on her, well, center of mass, then she can still move her limbs even though her balls can’t do more than rub against each other, slowly
That’s usually enough to get some penetration going.
…
*hands this comment to Dabbler, who is better-equipped to respond to it*
Sydney’s orbs are practically immobile at the best of times. That’s why she’s so shy about the changeroom.
As someone who worked in Materials Testing for the construction industry for several years, I can assure you, concrete can be very durable indeed, DaveB.
And love the twist here – very cool.
Ah, so more a Hotline Miami situation. I guess she doesn’t know where her body is, or she’d go with the obvious “ask harem to teleport her out” option.
Nice plan… except for the even more obvious flaw: Daphne can’t *VORP* living people (Vahriah is the one exception)
Ah, right. Actually, it would be a thing to know if Daphne could transport Concretia – either her body when she isn’t inhabiting it, or the possessed concrete when she is.
Well, even if Cree is not residing in her flesh body, it’s still alive, and Daphne also has that pesky weight-problem when it comes to lugging inanimate objects (remember, she had to store her other selves and remove her boots to carry Peggy’s rifle)
Which brings an interesting modification. Harem plus our gestalt Aztec port in, and then she finds waht she gets from touching Concretia.
Of course, they could also borrow Deus’s teleporter to make it easier.
*Math suddenly appears*
“Heck yea I will take your body!”
Do you think he is into hydraulic fracking?
FYI the Mohs scale is a scale of HARDNESS, not strength. Big diff. Will a sapphire scratch a diamond? No. Diamond is higher on the Mohs scale. But will a sapphire scratch quartz? Yes, because quartz is lower on the Mohs scale. How easy is it to fracture? The higher up the scale you go, the harder it is to fracture. By the time you reach diamond, you have to strike it along the “cleavage planes” (the internal molecular planes in the crystal lattice) to facet (fracture) it. That’s why you can use a diamond in a press or as an anvil — not because it’s strong, because it’s hard.
DaveB, we’re still waiting for you to introduce us to Sydney Scoville Senior – you know, whenever you get around to it…
*looks at watch* Aaaany time now…
Plus, we can maybe meet Sydney’s mom while we’re at it? Assuming there IS one??? *spooky X-Files/Fringe-type music* I’ve long had some… suspicions that Sydney’s origins are weirder than everyone thinks…
She does have a mom, she spoke to both of them just prior to the Rumble (how do you think Kevin managed to track them down?)
Plot twist, her parents are both villains and are pulling the strings behind this attack. They may or may not be supers and/or aliens.
Kinda like what happened in a recent TV series: “Motherland”
I cant help but it does not fit into my eyes how concretia is drawn. Her face all blocky (which is a nice choice) but the rest of her body perfectly rounded. Imho she should be drawn all blocky.
Again: look at Maxi, she has similarly angular facial structure
Also, “secret identity”. The difference may be intentional.
Oh well, if they have her body then she might get off a bit easier in court as long as it can be proven that she was being unwillingly held & coercion. Last time, she was able to blame Vehemence but she’s not going to be able to keep doing this with only minor repercussions forever, ya’ know…
There was no ‘last time’ for Cree, after Peggy claymore’d her arse (and the rest of her) she took off
I guess that means she’s a ghost in the (concrete) shell?
Sydney can still use her glasses to text Cora for help.
I’m sensing a theme here.
Off the top of my head, that makes FOUR geo-themed supers. Concretia & Marble Maiden, of course, but then there’s also Gold Guy (the guy who siphons gold from the Earth’s crust), and of course, Maxima herself. Hell, maybe even Stalwart is part of the geo-group.
Is this just a coincidence? Or is there some sort of upcoming plot-reveal about geo-themed supers?
Umm, calling Maxi a ‘geo-themed super’ (let alone Wart) simply because she has golden skin and got her powers from a golden shower from a geode is stretching things a bit
Mohs is a hardness scale. What can scratch other things but not be scratched by them. It has nothing at all to do with how resistant to damage a material is other than being scratched.
Diamonds are really hard, but you can shatter a diamond pretty easily with a heavy object, or split it down a fracture line if you’re a good enough jeweler. And things left out in the elements year after year, such as concrete, are subject to degradation due to sunshine, heating and cooling cycles, water getting into cracks and freezing which causes fractures, etc.
if only she could keep a liquid salt “liquid” would that technically still count as a “rock” be all terminator t1000
her astral body can already pass through solid objects and she can deform the rock around her to any shape she wants already, and her avatar is a golem built around her astral body; so really it wouldn’t make any difference.
You know, as this looks like some kind of evil plot atm, there is only 1 villain we have a real introduction to who might have done this. (There might be a few who would qualify with the villains list on comic 186, but not that have been introduced) The villain i am thinking of is Sicona, who now has a entire jar of souls needing hosts, but who also both knows sydney can possibly work with portals of some kind, and needs to keep off Arc’s radar so they can’t screw up her plans again.
(Sciona might not know sydney can make etherium caseways, but she does know sydney somehow survived on her destroyed planet for awhile before coming back to earth. With out any other insider info, either a weapon sciona would want, or a travel method are both reasonable guesses)
The darkest option, I postulated the Skrull (with a dash of Brood) invasion of killing and possessing supers or using their blood to enhance regular bodies too as we know she has that power with blood magic from the battle in her lair and had already been getting blood from supers and supernaturals for that reason
This just made me think of another option, someone could even be holding her body hostage by possessing it. Someone with a possession power or a demon or other spirit taking over her body while she is in spirit form, this other could have her body go about her business so no one knows she is missing but could kill her and make it look like suicide at any time without any risk to themselves. Think Bill Cipher with Dipper’s body or the dragon demon with Jade’s body in Jackie Chan adventures.
Only very vaguely about this comic:
What ever happened to the magical headband Decollete gave to Sydney back in #450?
Seeing the barrettes barely hanging on for dear life in that last panel reminded me of it.
Probably in a cupboard in Archon labeled “gifts from demons”.
There is sone band in Syds hair, but can’t tell if is the headband from Decollette. Dunno it has any magic thou.
Concretia can be said to be very spathic.
(definition: a mineralogy term. Having good cleavage.)
OK, it’s my only mineralogy joke. I’ll see myself out now.
Ha! So you made me do a little googling:
https://www.dakotamatrix.com/content/mineral-properties
Would you say her golem has a mammilary habit?
Something I only just realized… if Syd is supposed to be unable to sit forward due to the orbs’ metaphysical not-quite-bungee cord, why does it look like she’s sitting forward in this page?
We’ve had a fun debate about where the orbs’ tether actually attaches to her body, I don’t think it’s the head or hands and I think it’s somewhere in her torso, maybe somewhere a little lower than her heart.
Around about her center of gravity maybe?
Her spleen?
“Maybe below the cockles. Maybe in the sub-cockle area. Maybe in the liver, maybe even in the kidneys. We don’t know.” – Denis Leary
That’s because Cree made the throne that way: her back is flat against the back
Lot of time to practice + they have my body = this isnt just a recent thing.
Mmm interesting take. I went the other way myself. When she had her body she could spend time doing other stuff, like socialising, swimming, eating and practicing snu snu.
Now that she is in concrete (et al) mode all the time, due to losing her body, she is getting nothing but practice. Not necessarily requiring that this has been going on a long time.
And with this, Archon now has TWO hostages to rescue; Concretia is performing crimes, but she (claims to be) an unwilling prisoner of criminals.
Sydney’s duty (beyond survival) is now to rescue her.
Indeed.
And convincing her to switch sides would help that enormously.
Coercing a super into working for you is a great idea, nothing would ever go wrong with it. Letting your coerced super operate without a handler and have unmonitored communications with enemy supers is pretty smart.
Whoever shows up after Concretia to follow up her communication is an important clue to who has her. Probably not Deus because he can buy loyalty, maybe Sciona because she probably would think fear equals loyalty. Maybe a new arc villain.
To answer Dave’s rubble musings: Hardness and strength are different things. That’s why we reinforce concrete with steel, which is softer.
In fact the harder somethin is the more brittle. If we built cities out of diamond we’d end up with tons worse (and finer) rubble.
Why don’t we see Concretia still carrying Sydney’s uniform? What happened to it?
Put down on some of the scenery, one would presume.