Grrl Power #904 – A fob carrying bad guy
Here’s a cheery page for Xmas eve, eh? Can you just feel the spirit?
So, presumably, Concretia knows where her body is. Like, she can home in on it. Now that she has rock-kinesis, keeping her away from herself would be pretty challenging. Sure, you could build a big plastic room, but that room has to be resting on or in rock of some sort… unless you keep her on a boat. That could work, Fire Nation Earth Bender prison style. That or a dirigible. That might prove to be overly conspicuous though.
I have a really bad habit of introducing new characters, bad guys especially, without them bursting onto a page and announcing that their name is “Dr. Melodramatic Introduction” or whatever. For now I guess we can call this guy “Dr. Has Issues with Women.” It’s a fair assumption.
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dang, this is some new level of bad guy
28.
Ah, the stupid kind of evil. If he had let her finish she would’ve told him an interesting fact about the orbs that he could use.
That, and once she’s actualyl free of that shock collar.. well… you really don’t want to piss off a Geokinetic.
well unless you ENJOY being trapped in an uncomfortably warm chamber several miles deep
I was thinking Sand Coffin-Sand Burial.
This threat of course is why Concretia has to be freed because B rank villains like this always kill anyone once they feel they can’t control them any longer or no longer have use for them. Especially as their main means of control of anyone outside their ideological group tends to be forced via threat to them or those they care about. Can’t let them go.
Something tells me he does not intend for her to EVER get free.
Bad guys never (or very rarely) intend for good guys to win. If he was smart, he would never piss off someone with this kind of power. Because if they ever escape and you are still alive at that point… lets just say you would wish for death :D
To be fair just holding her body hostage already got him that, torturing her isn’t going to make it worse.
Honestly if she was “just” hostage her first instinct once free could have been to get the hell out of there, now it won’t
“I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.” -evil overlord list
this seems relevent
To the bound entity in his laboratory: “For what little its worth, I am sorry to do this to you. But harnessing your power is the only way I can achieve my goals”
If the arc teams are competent they should know where Sidney is. And that she lost her collar. I see no reason they wouldn’t track it especially if she started to call and was cut off.
Last I checked, those collars were more then just communicators. They also had trackers and live video and audio streaming built in. Thus why Harem leaves hers behind when visiting Deus. Last I checked, Sydney’s collar was still in one piece. Last I checked, Concretia called the bad guys to give them her exact location using Sydney’s phone. Her work phone.
Yeah.
Downside being, they’re a bit busy with Brut and the other goobers. Since Hench Wench has Concretia’s powers, we can assume she’s part of this gig, along with Brut and the flyer, so they know they just have to keep things interesting on the ground.
They might not know how much mojo they’re facing, of course…
There’s more to the team than those who are in the fight.
We don’t really know that Concretia and these new villains are a part of what is happening outside. They could be just taking advantage of the situation.
Except Hench Wench has her powers.
Concretia does not seem like she is in a boss position here to take part of any LLC, or this guy seem like the type to “let” her. I think we are seeing another local group who saw what was happening saw Halo flying away alone and have jumped on the opportunity. Here is hoping either A the collar being removed and that one second of a call has alerted someone to come soon, B Arc Dark is already there via a Dabbler handler following Sydney and will blind side these guys. Or. This guy agitates Sydney enough for her to pull a beast mode moment and the orbs break free.
Total agreement – I’m beginning to think the Super LLC is not actually affiliated with these guys (and therefore maybe there’s a second geomancer?), and they’re just using the chaos a few blocks away as a convenient distraction. ALTHOUGH…… Brut did say there was a bounty on Maxima to take her alive (maybe for study?) and Concretia did imply that these guys wanted to also study and uncover the secrets of supers as well.
I’m still not convinced this is not a russian mafia affiliated thing though. I’m mostly convinced it isnt a Sciona-related thing though.
Also Dabbler’s handler’s name is X. :) That would be interesting and cool if he/she is here and helped Sydney get free.
This looks like these idiots have been standing by waiting for an opportunity to ambush an isolated super. Have their hyper mobile ghost trailing arc members. The second part of this plan requires, as several others have suggested, some way for them to deploy their retrieval team quickly. Imagine how upset arc and the gov will be when they discover MORE supers who can teleport. Someone has to update the President’s protection detail AGAIN to cover even more dangers.
Counting factions that gets us Henchwench LLC, Alien super poachers, Cult Guys, and the invisible ARC IFORGETTHENAMEOFTHEINVISIBLEGUY who’s been watching in secret for the past 2 minutes
it would be appropriately anti-climatic for a code clusterfuck situation to as soon as those elevator doors close removing the quickest escape route to be surrounded by an Arc-Dark invisibility team or member that had trailed Sydney here.
I also agree these guys seem unrelated to the LLC for a number of reasons one big one being that this entire time the Stasis pod has neither been mentioned or even regarded as an item of interest by this group while the LLC made it a point to pass on a stasis gun and then engage Maxima and the others.
To be fair, Halo hid the stasis pod in here, and so far the only person who saw her hide it is Concretia, who hasn’t really had much time to tell them (or inclination to volunteer any information they don’t specifically ask for). :)
Or they might just have used a helicopter. They don’t actually seem to be supers – they’re just forcing at least one super to work for them. So far their methods of controlling Concretia have been decidedly ‘mundane’-based (ie, not super-powers).
They also might have been in the area after the spaceship landed in Times Square, thinking that they might have an opportunity to nab a super. And in the middle of the huge pileup of space mercenaries, ARC-SWAT, and the Super LLC, they seem to have taken advantage of the fact that Halo was significantly far enough away from all the fighting (approx half a mile away – close enough to get there pretty fast, but far enough that Maxima isnt going to know they’re around as long as Halo was not able to get a message out in time and Maxima’s preoccupied) to try to nab her.
I mean.. it’s also possible that they have a teleporter working for them, but in this case I’m going with the most obvious possibility being a helicopter, since even with the building under construction, the roof is there, which means they can land a helicopter on it, and they did come down from the roof (based on what we saw with the elevator).
And yeah they might be the cult guys, but I’m still hoping they’re the russian mob :) But I’m beginning to lean more towards cult guys since DaveB didnt do any sort of accent in their speech bubbles.
It’s forgettably generic.
As it’s supposed to be :)
^ This.
Concretia is part of the group that interrupted the alien’s kidnapping attempt, seeing as Hench-Wench has geokinesis.
Yes, because she is the only one to have that ability, it is completely unique to her and her alone
That could be a direct implication, OR it could be a red herring. Without a direct canon statement or something from DaveB, it’s foolish to argue as though either is certain
I am getting a red herring vibe as given this latest development especially I don’t see a sociopathic B rank villain like this “letting” Concretia sign any legal documents. I think we are in the middle of a “code clusterfuck” scenario where multiple groups and situations are arising at the same time.
Alien tourists, Alien mercs wanting to kidnap supers, Super mercs targeting alien technology and maybe a bounty, New York cultist Hellfire club/court of owls/friends of humanity have all shown up at once taking advantage of the chaos and the small team Archon sent.
Also of note is Henchwench is using geokinesis, but she isn’t using an astral projection that bonds with the essence of her surroundings to do so, unless Henchwench’s power copy also has an amalgamation of powers sub-trait it feels this was a bit of a red herring and Concretia isn’t part of the same group. I could see the LLC being private mercenaries or a Russian mafia connection, while these guys are some cultist doctors with visions of power in their heads having a personal vendetta *Death Toll’s outfit was similar; and Sydney thoroughly humiliated him, via name calling, figuring out how to overpower him, and the googly eyes…so either part of this group, maybe even related to this guy…which I did postulate that a mafia enforcer with no criminal record due to never being caught could have been in that Vehemence battle and snatched up Concretia’s body (due to all meeting in the same place before the attack) after words. But Death Toll or a phone call to his “friends” could fill that same role.
I’m in agreement with Guesticus and Rhuen. I’m seriously beginning to think that the geokinetic working with the LLC might be someone differnt than Concretia, who is clearly NOT in a leadership role in any criminal organization, and it was a red herring to try to throw us off by having us guess wrong.
There has been at least one other geokinetic mentioned in the comic so far, and there’s probably more than those two (since that other geokinetic apparently has been on good and very legal terms with Archon).
I dunno. The LLC was clearly created for the express purpose of powering up HW, probably specifically for the heist being thwarted downtown. It’s a pure shell company, there’s no reason or restriction to not make it a partnership with every super they can get their hands on regardless of their status in the organization, since partnerships don’t have to have equal shares or even proportionate payouts. Concretia may be a 0.001% owner if it doesn’t reduce HW’s access to her powers, even as a prisoner acting against her will. Sure, it’s not a legally enforceable arrangement, but if the LLC is registered with the state even under false pretenses, it still exists until a judge declares it null and void.
It would be a decent storytelling bluff to have a 2nd group, but the timing and execution is just too convenient. I think Concretia (and possibly a few other power donors*) was probably just standing by to lend assistance if needed (maybe HW has a proximity limit?), and tailed Sydney until she saw an opportunity.
*no, not that kind of power donor.
I still don’t think they’d be giving ANY level of power to someone who’s basically a hostage. I mean… it’s possible, but Concretia being forced into this makes me think it’s unlikely, shell LLC or not. Plus it’s not the first time that DaveB has tricked us with red herrings in his storytelling.
So we know of gold digger geokinetic(it’s a joke because he probably attracts many people for his wealth) and Concretia. Depending on the functioning of Henchies power copying sourcing her geokinesis from Concretia might not work. Hench hasn’t shown off the astral projection part of Concretia’s powerset or any other quirks that perfectly match it to her instead of random unknown super #5.
Concretia had to grind to unlock stoneshape as an ability, whether that’s a result of exercising her powers until they improved or something she could always do but had to practice mental focus for idk. So there’s a small chance that if Hench was copying from Concretia she would have no idea how those advanced powers worked and would need lots of practice time.
“To manipulate stone with your astral self you have to change your own perception of your own shape. You must freely shape your own self image without a care to the bounds of your abandoned flesh. For the stone is still your body but you can sculpt it freely.”
“That sounds complicated”
where is that quote from? It looks familiar, may be where I got one of my old ideas from.
Something like 17 years ago when I started my second and longest, still most influential to everything else I write series (Secrets of Aesperia); I came up with an elemental magic system *one of the seven grand systems of magic*; and how it worked. The Aesperian people could have an Astral Quality that matched up with various elemental forces and/or materials (Elemental Alignment). Aside from making it easier to use magic of that element they could with practice manipulate the element directly; by extending their own astral bodies to interact with the astral essence of those materials and move them in the physical world as if they were a part of them, reshaping, moving, and defying the limitations of the physical dimension’s physics via the astral plane.
Since I wrote this stuff out ages ago and was inspired by so many sources I had read or watched over the years I have pretty much forgotten what some of them were; including a few books on mysticism and folklore besides fantasy novels and anime and the like.
Funny enough what Concretia seems to be doing, manifesting an astral body with an elemental alignment is similar to the dream projection ability I once wrote into (but then modified into more of a Mega Man transformation) for a sorceress character where her elemental alignment was elemental magic its self so she could create dream projections as physically real as anyone else and based on specific elements *with limitations on different morals, ethics, libido, predatory mindsets, focus or lack of, ect…making them effectively different characters within one character overtime who conflict with one another; not really as separate personalities but outlooks residing within one mind; forcing the primary form to be more cautious over time on letting them out.
But that’s nearly two decades of convoluting my own character. In the original outline would have been closer to what Concretia has going. Main body goes to sleep, astral projections with various elemental powers manifest and can form bodies around themselves; originally mana bodies *damage them and they just sparked blue mana flames*…this also got convoluted overtime thanks to Quantum Reincarnation but I digress.
The only weird part is that Max isn’t already here.
The bitch left the battlefield to get a change of clothes, but she can’t zip over to where her recruit just lost her communicator after reporting contact with an enemy?
It’d take her… what, 10 seconds to get over here, end this fight and then go back, tops?
Probably too busy fondling that guy’s balls.
Whoa, what the f man? You don’t need to channel the mysoginistic side of this new villain .
While she could zip over, she has little info to go. She could be running into 10 more villains. She know Sydeny can take care of herself and all that’s happens is her come got knocked away. Something that can easily happen in a super fight. Best priority is to stop hechnwomen and run damage control trying to keep civilians safe/destruction down.
Actually the fact that Sydney lost her comm means that shes not under her shield and thus in direct danger of attack. Sydney is so powerful that *any* sign of legit trouble means *serious* trouble and should be investigated as a class 1 emergency.
Unfortunately, the team has no idea she is gone. Seems like they forgot about her. I dread this possibility, but I am guessing the guy has some sort of mind control device. He will get the info he wants and then sick Halo on her own team while the LLC escapes.
My hopeful side, says that Sydney will try to resist and Cora will be the one to notice her missing and call her. Once Cora sees that Sydney is in trouble, she will go to her location and/or call Frix to bring the ship with super reinforcements.
Ugh, the torture stuff makes me queasy. I hope Dave doesn’t stick to this part of the story for long and she gets recued.
Well… Dabbler knows she is gone, since she’s the one who ordered Sydney to hide the cannister somewhere until everything was settled with the alien mercs, but the team (including Dabbler) has no idea that she’s in trouble.
If anything they might expect that she’s the only one who would NOT be in trouble, since she’s nowhere near the Super LLC. Sydney left before the LLC even arrived, and while Maxima was still in the stasis field. And while Sydney tried to contact Maxima, by that point Maxima’s comm was already blown up, so it’s unlikely that Maxima would know that Sydney needs help (unless maybe Leon monitors the comms and could let others know from the quick warning she was able to get out before Concretia removed Sydney’s comm).
someone should be monitoring the comms, maybe like the other Arc members there whose comms are still intact, Achilles, Amorpheos, Dabbler, Heatwave; and hear she was cut off mid-sentence. Would not be responding back; and if Leon or anyone else working tactical picked up her phone in the field made an out going call and could eavesdrop to hear it was not Halo’s voice and an address.
Well, any of the above would mean someone needs to disengage from a fight that in truth Maxima can handle her damn self. Seriously, people are over estimating Brut and Hench Wench. Maxima could grab them both by the back of their necks and carry them into low orbit to pass out any time she wanted. While someone, oh like Dabbler who can probably use a Gate Spell to get them to Sydney’s life sign not far away; while Cora and Ray put restraints on the alien mercs if they aren’t already, neither seemed involved in the super fight at all.
Dabbles was last seen taking an unexpected nap
considering she is supposed to be an experienced demon adventurer that punch should have staggered but not knocked her out.
I sincerely doubt that someone who can and has fought Maxima to a stalemate would be knocked unconscious by one punch.
Unless maybe it was in the ol’ gazorpazovaries.
Remember why she has a cyber eye and hand? Oh, and a plug-in tail
She’s not as good at the adventuringing as she would like
Doubt the fight with Maxi was a physical one
its moments like this that the phrase, ‘you should see the other guy’ comes to mind. we do not know what level of opponent did that to her, or when, and if she came back later and got ‘compensation’ for the injuries. also, Max and Sydney make everyone look inadequate. so its premature to suggest that her injuries are a sign that she is easier to take on.
Plus we already saw where Dabbler ranks on the strength scale
I’m going to make the assumption that Dabbler was the ‘purple’ arrow on that scale. Which would put her at the 4th strongest person in Archon, after Maxima and two others – probably Hiro and Stalwart (who seem to be in ‘Dragon’ level) and just above Anvil and Blulk (who are at ‘Tiger’ level, but it might be Harem at Tiger level if she’s completely un-teleported, since unteleported Harem is about Anvil’s strength according to Dabbler’s Science Corner). Sydney, using the lighthook, only came up to the upper part of ‘Bull’ level, which would put the lighthook below Maxima, Stalwart, Hiro, Anvil, Blulk (or an unteleported single Harem), and Dabbler in strength.
Of course, without the lighthook, Sydney can only punch at calibration error level, and MAAAAAYBE at the upper level of Bunny.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-825-punch-practice/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-824-fist-of-the-sigma-octantis/
Fairly sure it was Dabbles herself who said she wasn’t as good as she would like to be
She’s good, she’s survived all her encounters (so far), but how many times did she barely survive? and how many was due to having someone else to save her?
Again, not taking anything from her (her safe-guards make that very difficult :P ), just stating that even experienced adventurers can be taken by surprise
She said she’s not as good at using a sword as she’d like to be.
She also has the problem of not just holding back to not kill her opponent but also anyone else in the area; but also the too many options problem so many old spell casters have.
So many options, which should I use, the fire rocket, the psycho wind blast, or maybe a lightning sphere; ya’know I haven’t used a gravity bullet in forever and…oh…they ran away while I was talking to myself, shit.
To be fair, she usually fights actual gods. And wins. An arm loss here and an eye loss there is to be expected.
And according to Maxima herself, she has only ever fought two people who were capable of fighting her to a standstill. One is dead (probably – I’m assuming that’s the guy in the splash page speaking in arabic or whatever language he was speaking in), and the other was on the team (during which Dabbler nudged Sydney to point to herself, meaning Dabbler was the one on the team that has fought Maxima to a standstill).
So again, I don’t think Dabbler’s going to be beaten by Hench Wench from one punch. :)
Dabbler in these fights had the same problem alot of higher level fighters have, especially someone used to settings like magical fantasy worlds it space pirate and Cthulhu wannabe enemies. She is used not only to really strong opponents but also used to using lethal force against them and their minions. Dialing that back I’d harder than may think, trying to estimate enough force to defeat but not kill your super powered opponents.
Side note I want to murder the autocorrect on my phone for switching normal words for other words that make no sense.
Which words. Space pirate?
(it) between worlds and space pirate should be “or”. also pirate should be pirates.
and I’d should be is; between “back” and “harder”. The autocorrect for some reason changed the words.
Most of Dabbler’s problems in fights tend to be when she’s messing around and/or not paying attention instead of being serious in the fight. Once she gets serious, she seems to usually be able to end the fight in a few seconds victoriously. Case in point – Heavenly Sword. She seems capable of summoning magic shields capable of even withstanding punches from Maxima, as long as she isnt being a goof-off or… grabbing Maxima’s boobs to make faces into it. :)
Agreed. Plus with the glasses I find it hard to imagine Arc personnel aren’t listening in.
Yes, because Sydney totally told them about her glasses, and that she used them to cheat on her firearms test
The communicator collars, on the other hand, weren’t they supplied by Ex Machina Industries? I wouldn’t bet against them having an eavesdropping function. If word of this situation gets to Deus in time for him to do something about it, an intervention seems like his kind of win-win – yes, he’d be blowing the secret that he listens in on the communicators, but he’d get to pretend he’s a good guy while demonstrating his reliability as an ally to ARC.
Even more important, it would give him a chance to impress Maxima favorably.
Nope, the collars were Dabbles’ idea (natch), you are thinking of Sydney’s rebreather (which was abandoned as seen as Gadget got hold of it and found all the shit SmugD had put in it)
Dr. “Needs an impromptu castration” maybe
Dr. Nope.
*prepares a ‘polymorph into canine’ spell*
“Hello, do your vets make calls in the area’s around Times Square? You do, good. We have need of an immediate fixing.”
don’t need a vet for that. i’m sure there’s some construction sites with an unused jackhammer around.
Ok. I think this guy needs a few gentle, corrective stabs with a rusty steak knife.
spoon. it hurts more
Not if you put the knife in *sideways*
Preferably on the flat side.
Always give a knife to someone handle-first.
Always give someone a knife handle-first.
It’s settled then, drawn and quartered with the flat side of the handle of a rusty spoon.
just remember he does not get any alcohol or cigarettes in his last meal(s). this may take a while. Jolt cola, and monster energy? oh yes have another. we want you awake as long as possible.
Has issues with women? I mean, I guess.
He could just be doing it ironically, since everyone knows the worst villains are the ones that are mean to women.
Even deus is nice to women. Even purple hulk a few pages ago cares about women. No man on earth can ever go five minutes without someone reminding them they wouldn’t exist without women.
This could easily be just a plot to get concretia inserted into arc-whatever because they clearly “rescued” her from that “misogynistic” asshole, right? Couldn’t possibly be an obvious trick to give her easy bona-fides, right? Right?
Or he could just legitimately be an asshole, and treat everyone that way.
I’m curious how he plans on cancelling wit, unless this comic is about to turn 50 shades darker i don’t see a reasonable way of accomplishing that.
Well better than him just eating an apple, … or is that next?
… What? o_O
classic Hollywood trope, the villain will stand or sit there chewing on an apple while talking to the good guys.
It makes no sense, blame some weird cowboy movies and a case of copycat syndrome from there.
its just like ever since Blade Runner every other cyberpunk movie had the main character eating Chinese take out.
Thought that that was more the fact the Chinese were going to take over the world, just look at “Firefly”, half the words and phrases are Chinese (the other half are swear words… in Chinese)
that might be why Bladerunner did it; but ever since in a lot of sci-fi and even action movies in general you will often seen the action hero eating Chinese take out noodles. Its like a set trope, why the condescending bad guy eats an apple, or why almost every kid’s room has a book and/or a globe in it.
-fun fact: in the movie Krampus the prop people clearly went overboard with every kid’s room cliché they could for the main kid in that movie to decorate his room…which resulted in a plot hole *of sorts*. They put a goldfish in a bowl in the background. This fish is clearly not in the script. No one ever mentions it, and when the house is freezing over its not even mentioned or any attempt made to rescue it from freezing to death in its bowl. It would be like having a movie where the house burns down but the little kid never mentions the hamster in a cage we saw in the background of one scene. Just…odd.
Well, when your house is burning down (or freezing up), your priorities kinda get a little messed up, and it all depends on just how much the kid like(d) the fish in the cage or the hamster in the bowl
And what sort of kid doesn’t have books (of some sort) in their room?
on the book case, look at some of those kid movies at the background, while some 80s and 90s movies targeted to kids made sure to include magazines and comic books on the shelves, the majority look like the kid has a full set of encyclopedias stacked on their book case. Not paper backs or a few books and other junk. So many movies, especially ones not targeted to children but the set designer and prop department have to set up a quick kid’s room for a quick scene in some rom com or drama; ends up being like a book case with an encyclopedia set on it, a globe, random posters *seriously random sometimes*. The teen room sets are usually a little more accurate by they so often make a smaller kid’s room look like a classroom with a bed in it.
Almost a cinemasins reference at this point.
‘Or he could just legitimately be an asshole, and treat everyone that way.’
I mean…having a woman call you ‘Daddy’ has some pretty clear connotations that really aren’t easily replicated on men, unless the offending person in question is into men. Most straight guys who are a-holes to everyone would probably be freaked out if another guy they were screwing (metaphorically) called them ‘Daddy’.
Master or Sir are other forms of address could carry the same weigh while still being ambiguously sexual in nature with the opposite sex but easily appeal to anyone regardless of gender while still indicating the a-hole in question simply sees others as subhuman objects to be used.
The only reason I even said most of that is that we need to consider this person’s motivations in acting this way. The author implies that for some reason they just hate women. Okay, if that’s true… They were abused as a child, as studies show most male abusers of women were abused by women as children.
If he’s just an asshole who does objectively bad things because they’re bad, does it matter the form in which they take?
Consider the game The Forest. Which is worse, raping a mindless cannibal or necrophilia? Both are bad, and both done on purpose on an island in the middle of the ocean have little justification either way.
My point being, if this man is sexually evil, maybe it really is only towards women, or maybe the fob is a holdover from a previous owner, i wouldn’t know. If he is sexually evil, no reason he isn’t the same to men as well, if it’s for humiliation and not gratification it might be just whatever the victim hates most.
Another option is bad writing. I don’t really want to consider this option, but it’s an option we might have to consider. Deus was introduced as a womaizing philandering asshole… And yet he has been shown to truly want the best for humanity in some regards even if he doesn’t care about the means to achieve it.
We all know the easiest way to set some guy up as the most evil in the room is to have them immediately kick a puppy, kill someone, eat an apple, or be mean to women. So either the character is literally so vapid that their only trait is “is mean to women” or they have some other purpose that is only incidental that it’s to women.
We can apply logic that most men are straight but even then, most men are simps, not even dominant or kinky bdsm freaks like electro-shock-therapy man here.
If we want to assign the character anything more than minion status for the real villain (like, deus, in the next page) who them shows they’re *not* mean to women, then we have to assume there’s more to his character than just misogyny.
Cuz really, who would ever write someone who’s only purpose in life is to be hated and kicked in the balls? Imagine having so little regard for one sex that you could make a female that had no character traits but “abused men”, you can’t really imagine it can you? Yet any simple man who abuses women gets the comment section overflowing with “KILL HIM!!!” energy in a heartbeat.
I choose to believe Dave is a better writer than to just employ puppy kicking as a tool of pandering to the audience.
Dude. It seems really important to you to find a reason that this pretty obviously misogynistic character isn’t really misogynistic. Or, If he is, to be mad at the author for presenting an obviously misogynistic character as someone we’re supposed to hate. Why are you so offended that “having issues with women” is being presented in such a negative way?
I’ll second this.
Nothing of the sort. I’m trying to find a reason *why* they’re being “misogynistic”, not trying to somehow magically make them not.
I even pointed out how since this is so obviously like a badly written supervillain that kicks puppies it could be just a plot to get concretia inserted into the good guy team.
You need to figure yourself out if me pointing out a silly writing ploy is me being “offended.” You’ll know when I’m “offended,” because I’ll tell you I don’t appreciate how you’re speaking to me. Conveniently that doesn’t happen very often, because I believe in freedom of speech. so, you know, say whatever you want, that still doesn’t protect you from reply or rebuttal.
It seems the entire comment section is filled with “stab him with rusty spoons!” And “screw anyone who doesn’t want him stabbed with rusty spoons!” Instead of trying to figure out why the author is trying to make us feel like stabbing a person with rusty spoons.
If it was the reverse gender roles everyone would be cheering them on for electrocuting concrete-man, because screw men, am I right?
You’ve got quite a twitch. Kind of spoils the logic and reasonableness of your arguments, makes it hard to believe you’re arguing in good faith.
Most people don’t try to psychoanalyze authors, regardless of the particulars of the story. They’re just there to enjoy the story. Some people try to analyze the story, but again, rarely does that extend to analyzing the author. You’re making this out to be a bigger thing than anyone else perceives it to be, and there’s this stuff that keeps bobbing up in your arguments that suggests the rest of them are pretextual.
There’s nothing to figure out, man. The character is a creepy, misogynist asshole. He’s been on-camera for all of one comic so far, so we obviously don’t know anything more about his motivations or how he got that way, but that’s hardly a failure on the author’s part. Nor is it a failure if we never get a deep psychological rationale for why he’s like this at all. He’s a loathsome creep who’s clearly getting off on victimizing a woman in an abusive and sexualized way, and we’re supposed to be disgusted with him and sympathetic to Concretia, just like Halo is.
And that’s okay! This comic, impressively enough for a work about superheroines, actually *hasn’t* leaned very hard into the damsel-in-distress trope at all up to this point, and while we’ve seen plenty of male characters with gross attitudes and behavior towards women (including more than a few whose behavior is presenting sympathetically), we actually haven’t seen a male character yet with this degree of straight-up abusive misogyny. It may not be your favorite trope in the world, but there’s no particular reason to immediately start second-guessing the author’s description of *his own character,* or accusing the author of being a bad writer, because of it.
Unless, of course, there’s some *reason* that you take it really personally. Every one of your posts is dripping with this “men are victims, men are persecuted, everyone’s so mean to the MEEENNNNN!!!” stuff – most of it doing very little to advance your point, but an awful lot to reveal why you’re making it. You’ve pretty clearly been marinating in some of the nastier corners of the anti-feminist, Gamergate, “men’s rights” scene on the internet, because these weird, kinda creepy attitudes about gender and feminism don’t just happen and aren’t something that you see a lot of normal, well-adjusted guys just bursting to bring into their plot analysis of superhero webcomics.
Freedom of speech means *you* get called on your BS, too.
Ok, lets take the “It’s a plot to get Concretia into Arc as a plant” perspective seriously for a minute:
“Daddy” is obviously not going to survive this plan (or if he does, then he certainly won’t want to). The mere existence of Maxima ensures that, never mind the rest of the options. For Concretia to be a believable recriut, “Daddy” has to fall on his sword.
So it’s obviously not “Daddy”‘s plan. So whoever’s plan it *is* will have gotten someone disposable to play the part here, and if you’re picking someone to do this, why not pick someone who will fulfil their role (being an evil super-slaver) without needing to fake anything?
So *even if* it is a plot to get Concretia into Arc as a plant, “Daddy” is still more than likely an evil monster who deserves everything coming to him.
Hex, First off I don’t think he is offended,
I think his point is simply that there can be alot of explanations to why this character is torturing his victim, and only one of those (Which he presented a handful of) is misogynistic, and hence, the misogynistic conclusion should not be the first people jump to.
Yet they are. Without any deeper thought of it.
At least I have a problem with people jumping to the first stereotypic conclusion they can. I wish people would at least try to think abit more.
The way in which he is torturing his victim is misogynistic, so the presumption is that is also an element in why he’s torturing his victim. Theoretically, he could just be a psychopath, using whatever means he believes will be most effective, without any emotional investment in it. I’m not sure that’s a distinction with a difference.
I’d say it is a significant difference. It’s the difference between targeting someone specifically, and targeting them for a category they happen to belong to.
So far, we have no evidence to show that ‘Daddy’ treats women in general in this way, only that he is treating Concretia in this way. Now that might be because Concretia happens to be female, and he’s taking the opportunity of mistreating her as a way to vent his anger at the gender in general. Or it might be because she’s his subordinate within their organisation, and he can’t pass up an opportunity to remind her of that power (especially with her having a Power and him apparently not). In the latter case, Concretia being female may well have inspired the mode of such a reminder, but not its motive.
Again, I recognize the theoretical possibility that the mode of torture was selected purely for its effectiveness, with no personal investment in it. I just think it’s highly unlikely. If someone is willing to treat one person like that, any person, then I doubt their ability to treat people in general any better, except as a sociopathic strategy for manipulating others.
I say that, despite humans demonstrating the ability to contain such contradictions. I just can’t fully comprehend it, only observe it at a distance. I think it’s pretty damning.
Misogyny is directed specifically at women, so a general disdain for people in general regardless of gender would not be misogyny. I’m not disputing that ‘Daddy’ may have a more general dislike than targeting Concretia specifically, but jumping straight to misogyny is not (yet) justifiable from what’s been seen on-page. For example, his dislike may instead focus on Powers, subordinates, ethnicity, class, or simply people in general – still a general problem, but not that specific one (with all its current baggage).
Let me be more direct: It is my belief that someone who is capable of treating any woman this way is a misogynist, incapable of actually loving or respecting any woman.
Most people treat their family, clan, tribe, friends, etc. well. It’s how you treat your enemies that shows what kind of person you really are.
“They were abused as a child, as studies show most male abusers of women were abused by women as children.”
That is pure BS, they are just dicks!
To correct this: Most abusers (of women or men) were abused themselves (by someone, gender does not significantly factor). Further, most people who were abused do not become abusers. There is generally some set of factors that contributes to people becoming “evil.” A congruence of genetic and environmental factors that creates monsters. But the human mind is too complex to predict how any one factor will affect a person into the future.
So, yeah. There’s always a backstory. But it doesn’t always matter since once you turn into someone like this, you become the problem in your own right. Dr. Has-Problems-With-Women doesn’t need to be understood. He needs to be stopped.
The fact that they are universally reviled as being the male genetalia has nothing to do with the fact, nor does it negate the fact, that statistically, abusers were themselves abused.
#notall and all that, but literally, the majority of female only male abusers were abused by females, and the majority of female abusers of men were abused by men. Its a vicious cycle, it was even referenced on futurama once, they made the most evil thing they could think of, a child abusing robot. Think that was futurama.
Cooter was exactly as one dimensional as you’re complaining about, and he lasted a long time. People loved to hate him, lol.
yeah but redneck monster hunter in over his head has D rank villain potential. Especially since he can pull a “They killed Kenny” bit now. A joke of a villain.
this new guy looks like a B rank villain, which are never fun. They are dark, serious, and messed up, killing, torturing, rapists, and the like. There rank is as high as it is because you HAVE TO take them Serious or else people are going to suffer and die at their hands; in especially brutal ways. Typically though they show in Anti-hero stories, Punisher, Witchblade, Spawn, (which funny enough those comics its always either a B rank villain or some S or Omega rank villain like a world conquering devil or ancient god);
but Punisher, Wolverine, X-men in general honestly, Deadpool, and the like will run into these types fairly regularly; the they have bodies in their basement, abducting and murdering people off the street, that type of fair. I feel it best to show they are messed up, save anyone on panel, and then off this villain.
I don’t hate poor Cooter. He’s just a poor redneck trying to avenge his family who was horribly murdered by monsters. And he has a few learning disabilities, but I can blame the education system for that. :) He’s just a big dumb puppy, trying his darnedest to protect the world from those who killed his loved ones who were probably hurtin’ no one except whoever bought their moonshine.
And he not only lasted a long time, he’s still alive even now, merged with Wyrmil.
Just because he was sliced in half doesnt mean he’s dead. Wyrmil’s pretty close to unkillable according to the Council, although that death field came really close to doing the job.
I don’t think it’s that much work to give a bad guy a trait that pops up pretty frequently in real life.
Others having sufficiently disposed of the idea that Mr. Obviously Misogynistic is Merely Misunderstood, I rise to address the question whether introducing misogyny as a defining characteristic is “bad writing”.
It’s not, and for two reasons. First, it’s not the guy’s only motivation; on the evidence presented (which may be incomplete) he’s part of – and possibly the head of – a very organized effort to acquire advanced technology through the co-ordinated extralegal efforts of previously unremarkable supers, including careful teamwork (e.g. tossing loot to Unknown Flyer), detailed legal preparation, and effective recruitment through means foul and fair. Up to this page, we saw as motivation a conventional and understandable lust for power.
Looking more broadly at the writing of this story arc, we immediately feel a difference between Mr. Misogyny and the other villains because his main predecessors in the arc are ridiculous (…dangerous people, to be sure, but don’t tell me you didn’t laugh at Brut, Hench Wench and Torchy…) or full of pathos (Concretia – who fully established her humanity by wistfully wishing for sensations we can all relate to). This contrast makes the villainy even more villainous and THAT …my friends … is good writing.
I seriously don’t get where you people are getting that this is connected with Supervillains R Us, LLC.
The only piece of evidence for that I’ve seen used was Hench Wench having some form of geokinesis, but we know, for a fact, that geokinesis is not unique to Concretia. Remember the geokinetic ARC wasn’t worried about because he just siphoned a bunch of gold out of the mantle and is living modestly on it (page 368)? I’m not saying he’s involved either, just proof that there is in fact more than one geokinetic active. Given Concretia’s… circumstances, I rather doubt she (willingly) signed on to a villainous company.
Also, Concretia happened to specify that this idjit is not part of a corporation (or university, or government).
Youre confusing character motivations with character traits. That he’s a bad guy doing bad things is a character trait, that he’s doing them for x reason is a motivation.
We don’t know *any* of this person’s motivations, we only know 1.5 of their traits, we assume they’re a guy, and we assume they just hate women.
And i think that we could have been more nuanced. Call me Anita sarkeesian if you want, but I’m tired of the damsel in distress trope, because men aren’t some universal evil that hates women, look how the comments are discussing the best way to murder this man, the only people in this world universally accepted of being reviled are men.
“but I’m tired of the damsel in distress trope, because men aren’t some universal evil that hates women”
Good thing men aren’t portrayed like that in this comic.
In fact, most of the guys in this comic have been cool.
Double in fact, the most unabashedly cruel and psychotic villain so far has been female, not male.
Yep. So far the most evil person that we have seen based on actual actions has been Sciona. But In this creepo’s defense he had only been on one page so far :)
As I have had to explain many times to people on the internet;
“Ironically” saying bigoted things and hurting people is, practically speaking, indistinguishable from the real thing.
Because the results are the same.
Can’t agree with this enough.
If you set out to be the most evil person in the world, what would you do, violate the geneva conventions, or abuse women? Or kick puppies perhaps? My point is the author wrote this person to abuse women, and we are left to try and rationalize why.
I gave a few options, bad writing, doing the ironic worst thing possible, or just coincidence that it’s to women. The fact that you seem to have a stick in your craw about some people saying bad words doesn’t change this fictional character or how it’s written.
“I gave a few options, bad writing, doing the ironic worst thing possible, or just coincidence that it’s to women.”
Or, you know, the most likely option; He’s a misogynist of some kind.
And I don’t see why me pointing out that doing something harmful, “Ironically”, is still doing it means that I’m stuck up.
What does that have to do with people hiding behind “It’s just a joke Bro”?
You’re getting a little obsessed here.
No, you are trying to rationalize why, near everyone else is accepting that he is an arsehole and that he should die, painfully, not try and rationalize that he is a victim and deserves pity and forgiveness
“Boys throw stones at frogs in fun, but the frogs do not die in fun, but in earnest.” — Bion of Borysthenes
There is the option that he hates her in particular, and knows this is one of the best ways to insult her.
Also, not for nothing, but…
“No man on earth can ever go five minutes without someone reminding them they wouldn’t exist without women.”
…Huh?
Who the heck is reminding you that you wouldn’t exist without women every five minutes? Or, like, at all? I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard a woman voice this sentiment – let alone voice it in a way that’s somehow hostile to or denigrating towards men. I’m sure someone’s said it that way at some point, but, like… what kind of situation are you in where this is so oppressive that it feels like it’s “every five minutes?” Is it actually a woman who is constantly telling you this? Or is this something that that trolls and incels on the internet THINK women are constantly saying?
That’s a SUPER weird thing to say, is what I’m getting at.
No one on earth would exist without men either. Humans don’t reproduce asexually. :)
Y the Last Man notwithstanding.
It happens a lot elsewhere, especially feminists. Remember, lung cancer affects women most because when men die of it, women are sad.
Yes, that was an actual lung cancer commercial that played.
People love to say that you wouldn’t exist without your mother, that she raised you, etc, it’s weird you’ve never once seen a feminist, they’re everywhere these days.
Define “everywhere”. Because I haven’t heard that sentiment much at all either.
I think he might be exaggerating when he says ‘everywhere’, but I think he’s referring to stuff like this:
https://i.imgur.com/M6DG21C.jpg
Which is a fair point. But honestly the character here does seem very much misogynistic. You don’t have the woman you’re forcing to work for you call you ‘daddy’ without a little misogyny in there, you have to admit Wearegrid.
Like I said elsewhere, it’s part of the cultural zeitgeist that if a character does certain things, it does trigger an emotional response in the audience that ‘This guy is UNREDEEMABLY BAD’ – which seems to be very obviously something DaveB is trying to express about this jerk of a character. It makes them a little more two-dimensional, which makes them easier to really hate. Stuff like both hurting women WHILE being demeaning to them, hurting children, hurting cute and fluffy animals for fun, etc.
He’s just a fictional representation of ‘this is a bad person.’ And an easy way to show that in just a couple of panels was to force Concretia to thank him and call him ‘daddy’ AFTER causing her intense pain for ‘disobedience’ (even though she did NOT disobey, he’s just being maliciously cruel).
Are you an MGTOW idiot, or an Incel idiot?
I’m curious which of these you identify as.
C’mon there was no need to say that to him. We’re usually better than that on this comment forum. :)
Except if that were the case, we wouldn’t see her unconscious, captive body being given an electric shock – he’d just be pushing the button, and she’d react according to plan.
Yeah, Max is gonna love this guy…
I was just gonna say that he had better pray that, literally, ANYONE gets to him before Maxima does. After she gets done with him, there wouldn’t be enough ash left to make a mouse sneeze.
Something tells me that Dabbler wouldn’t find woman hating very funny, either. And Max can only kill you…
I’m sure Dabbler knows some fitting locations to send scum like this to.
And a friend with a ship to take the remains to
I was thinking more along the lines of sending them to another space with demons who delight in pain. We know she feeds on lust. Vehemence and that op type of demon fed on violence.
There has to be a type that feeds on pain. And every food has a gourmand…
There are things much worse than death.
Personally I’m praying he’s on a different (preferably uninhabited) planet when Maxima finds him. I’m sure she’s good at minimizing collateral damage but I wouldn’t want to take any chances.
Maxim 34: If you’re leaving scorch marks, you need a bigger gun.
Maxima is the biggest gun.
I hope this prick doesn’t know about maxim 68: Negotiating from a position of strength does not mean you shouldn’t also negotiate from a position near the exits.
I’m pretty sure Maxima is NOT as strong as the gun Pa’anuri used for shoting from Andromeda Galaxy to ours.
As Peggy would point out, there’s a difference between ‘big gun’ and ‘gun in the right place’. The Very Long Gun is arguably both, but it’s the latter that’s arguably the more important characteristic of any Long Gun.
Wow…this guy… just…wow.
So, on a scale of “0” to “the amount Pander likes Deus”, how much do you like this guy?
I love this scale of measurement. :) I’ll tell you that much! :)
He he.
Excessive force has been approved of in the apprehending of the leader.
Release restraint level one until the target has been silenced.
How about “Dr. Complete Fucking Asshole”?
Mr. Panel Two, I presume?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-186-fingers-to-maximum-steepleage/
Nah. Eye color is wrong. That said Major Havok (!!!!!!) would call this dude out.
Well maybe. Wrong eye color for match. Could be working for them. Too little info so far. They do seem to be norms, or henchmen for rent thou.
The word.”cleansing” sort of implies cult or ritualustic theme to me. Aka zealots
I would say of the folks on that page, Panel 2 is the most likely, but yes, the person pictured on 2 would be the boss or partner of this person with the key fob.
It’s definitely a possibility. Him or Antonin being the ‘secret boss.’ I’m pretty sure Sciona’s not quite as likely, given she would still need time to build up an infrastructure within the cartel that she’s going to take over. Not sure if under 53 days is enough time.
Konstantin, not Antonin, sorry.
Villain establishing moment. While Vehemence was affably evil and just wanted to really test out his powers with a real mega-power up this guy is the ‘no redeeming characteristics’ evil that anything other than a slow, torturous death is too good for him (although an ironic hell would be acceptable).
Welp, I am extremely uncomfortable. Really hope Sydney can do something.
I think Mr Womenissues here is going to pressure sydney enuf that she discovers how to break her orbs free of confinement, followed by her giving the Mr even more womenissues.
I suspect the instant Sydney’s collar was damaged, alarms went off at Archon HQ, they’ve tapped into her phone, know exactly where she is, have been monitoring the situation via her phone, and probably moved assets into position– at the moment, they’re gathering intel as long as no one is being seriously injured so they know who, and what, they’re up against.
The question is do they act and potentially risk death or injury to Concretia, or is she worth saving and potentially recruiting? I would say it’s the latter, so a cautious approach is better than a frontal assault– for now.
Obviously, Concretia is following her orders in such a way as to cause minimal harm / discomfort to Halo, so that’s in her favor.
Hm. That fob… those things are notoriously short range. Particularly in office buildings. Too mych faraday cage efrlfect going on.new offuce spaces usually nowadays have metal mesh ceiling tiles which requires the need for radio repearers for cell phones etc. I expect they also have to have something like that for that fob to even work
Bluetooth, probably linked to his phone.
I thought of the limited range as well and started thinking about proximity of her body, but bluetooth is a very good very explanation. Being that within clicker range of Concretia’s body would have serious logistical and practical issues.
Personally, I do not consider it a weakness that you introduce villains without them shouting out their name, backstory, ancient history and every conceivable weakness.
To me that is just good story telling to not have your antagonist do something so obvious silly (and last century)
And to be honest, I do not really care all that much where this guy’s inferiority complex comes from that he feels the need to stomp down on everybody who might conceivably expose it. Not everything has to come from a tragic backstory. Sometimes it is better to just let an over the top villain be a pure evil variant, instead of attempting to give him a vaguely sympathetic motivation and then hamstrung yourself because now you cannot have him do those ‘dastardly things’ that the story calls for but that now conflict with his backstory.
D:
Is anyone else making that exact face Sydney is?
well, we found the first one that needs to die.
“I have a way to circumvent that” sounds pretty ominous and creepy, considering what we’ve already seen of his methods.
Hm, … box with qnother zappy collar?
Here’s hoping it’s just duct tape.
Given his level of jerk-i-ness, I’d bet on a ball gag. He seems like that kind of creep.
A used ball gag that he purchased at Goodwill because the clerk thought it would be funny to throw in the kids toys bin.
The thing that comes to mind, that would be likely to shut Halo’s mouth, would be that he knows who her parents are and is going to threaten them. We haven’t seen much of their relationship with Sydney, but we can tell it’s not particularly strained. It should be simple for someone well connected to figure out who they are, and I’d think that of all the folks in Arc-SWAT, Sydney should be one of the most vulnerable in this way, so the defense would be if Maxima or Arc-swat folks would have moved them in to HQ, or went to their house/apartment and turned it into one huge safe-room
The problem with threatening the family of government agents (which Sydney is) is that they are GOVERNMENT AGENTS. The threat cannot be carried out. Sydney’s already shown herself smart enough to know that a threat of that sort would be empty, because if they tried to carry it out–it wouldn’t end well for them; Sydney’s parents would be fine.
For a moment, I thought this was mr Bell Tolls…
There might be a connection. Like Death toll is this guy’s son or something and Sydney humiliated Death Toll in several ways. It would also give the someone from that fight thanks to meeting up before the fight would know where Concretia body was and grab it. I just suspected mafia enforcer or vampires thrall before cultists.
The cowls are a connection, but these guys look far more imperious than he did even without the googly eyes, even before they went all grimdark. I guess cowls need to be worn in groups before you can really pull off the look.
Thing is you see this kind of person all the time. Had a manager who had the “I am over you, so you do whatever i say” control freak disease. Even said so once. Too bad there is no cure for it. They tend to be the supreme brown nosers to upper managment, while they walk all over subordinates. They also tend to hide or intimidate via that as well.hard to fight evenwith whistle blower laws, since they tend to be protected by someone higher up who allows it.
I think perhaps that you have nailed it. I have a hard time seeing this villain as the big picture guy. I’m betting that he is the “sadistic high level henchman”.
Geeze, dude. How about you tone down the psycho torture-loving wannabe pedophile schtick about 20 notches?
This is the first character I’ve wanted dead…. congrats
This cements Concretia’s flipping to the good side (sorry not sorry)….
I look forward to her eventual revenge.
Hmm, seems someone has read the cliff’s notes version of Peter’s Evil Overlord list…and really should have read the full copy. Tsk and he appears to have read my older brothers diaries…SMH, Ming is my brother but do you see me having anything to do with him. Sure he’s smarter, but I’ve never been caught or have been killed and ressurected multiple times. uhg, Mom said I could learn from him, that he was a great addition to the family empire running business. He’s a total loser. Just like ‘Mr. Mask and Hood’ showing how clueless his is as a ‘master’. He’s just warped and not fit to be bottom much less top. Hmmph, now, back to my project. Best part is nobody knows I’m the one running things.
A new villain,now to introduce a new hero type…!
Is the “powered herself with other people’s blood” a Hero Academia joke? Or is there a super in this series I’m fogetting?
Sciona.
Sciona.
Sciona.
You three need a bass?
Sciona.
AKA, creepy-half-head-wearing-a-orc-body-who-used-a-mystic-dagger-to-turn-herself-back-into-a-laser-angel?
Yeah, that girl. If you still don’t know who she is, start reading here.
I couldn’t stop myself from hearing a barbershop intro, well done.
I thought barbershop quartet when I read that also :)
Demonn barber of Fleet street?
I dont understand the reference, sorry! :)
Sweeney Todd
which has nothing to do with a barber shop quartet;
just to point that out.
I had honestly forgotten that Sciona’s magic was blood-based.
My first thought was the creepy yandere from Hero Academia with the Quirk that let’s her transform into anyone whose blood she licks/drinks.
My dad is a master barbershopper, so no surprise there.
The mysterious dignity of the “masks and hooded robes” secret society thing is undermined somewhat by the fact that they’re wearing the robes under their suits.
funny thing is being a SWL player… even the Illuminati, Templars and Dragon thing mask guys like this are nutbars :P
lets hope he makes a fairly big mistake. like tying up sidney without mittens. then letting the balls loose. after all the yellow one isn’t dangerous. no not at all.
I’m starting to wonder if the hetorb can go spiky.
Sidney will have read OotS
I’m sure Sydney has at least heard of OotS, although depending on the timeline and her fangirl level she may also know that Evan’s spell was later regretted by the author for its implications. Never retconned out, but the spell definitely will not be invoked again.
Well the spell could be worse if it was the Capsium based one…
It feels weird to say this, but is amazing how much the art style of a comic strip about stick figures has improved over the years.
I have a deep and unquenchable need for this person to suffer horrible things.
My vote is for locking him in the tentacle closet for an hour, with the lubricant reservoirs filled with broken glass.
*nods, looks the other way*
Oh what is that interesting non-controversial building I can see in the background?
I don’t know what that is but here Yorp put on these noise cancelling headphones while we’re investigating that building.
So. I’m guessing Max is just watching and getting some intel. After all.. She’s fast enough to catch a bullet she can intersede if they move on Syd.
Syd who was cleaning getting intel and possibly converting with her.. sydeneesss. and now they have a hostage as well.
There is no way they don’t know where she is between Max’s power set, Alien tech, Dabbler Tech, and the fact her collar thingy is in one piece, in the same area, she was mid “help” and Concre made a great play by calling the big bads using Syd’s phone. Which we know was marked up earlier.
Looking forward to the big reveal where Dabbler+Cora teleported to Concy’s body for a rescue/destroy mission, Max is just floating above them meanincgly gathering intel.
At least sort of hoping for that. I don’t think I want a ‘lose power set’ nor a ‘syd’s solo adventure’ again so quickly after she got back from one.
They have to first know that Sydney is in trouble
So far, everything is ass humping that Maxi is waiting on the floor above with a full squad of Space Marines and Peggy across the street with her Barrett
I think they know already, via sydney’s collar an her cell phone usage by Concretia. I’d not be surprised to find out that Max is already present, gathering intel prior to going tactical.
Syd (possibly the most powerful super on the planet) just called for help on her comms and was cut off. Then hasn’t responded since.
If that doesn’t merit at least an immidiate recon visit by someone, then Archon *deserve* to lose.
Max is tied up downtown with HW, but yeah somebody ought to be arriving very very soon, even given the time to find her exact location. Harem should be able to narrow in on the building in seconds with some GPS guidance from the overwatch team.
Sydney has been fucking secured!
Or do you think Sydney is just calmly sitting there, waiting for her captors to arrive?
He doesn’t care.
What this affords him is an opportunity to oppress and humiliate Concretia. And to force her to more visibly comply with his orders. Thus massaging his own ego, whilst hammering home his ability to force compliance, not just to her but also to the others accompanying him.
Also helping to clarify to the readers that this guy is 110% Capital-E Evil, and doesn’t care who knows it.
On a practical note, having a reputation as an Evil person probably doesn’t hurt when your minions are unwilling. I suspect Concretia is not his only super-thrall. When keeping people terrified of you is the only way for you to continue having power over them, you quickly become the monster you may at first be pretending to be.
It is not the electrical punishment the problem, as you say there is some logic behind it.
The problem is when you make them thank you for the punishment. It is a line that once you cross it, Death is just not enough for you.
As Machiavelli said you can choose to be loved or to be feared, but whatever you do don’t make people hate you, because if people hate you enough even fear cold not be enough to stop them from trying to destroy you.
Or something like that.
exactly right.
the Divine Awesome is a hard balance to aim for
*Note: the word Awesome, or to be in Awe of something originally meant to be in fear of and love it at the same time*
(typically only something/someone really powerful viewed as above others like a god can achieve this)
But yeah, the root of so many getting stabbed in the back by your own henchmen. Even the ones you don’t torture and murder on whims or to gain control over; as they see how far you are willing to go and they may not feel the same way and that fear you could turn on them the same way spreads and they decide to off you themselves to be safe. Of course the tortured supers getting free and killing you as well factor;
(hey guys: the guy torturing you. I killed him. So I’m in charge now and willing you pay you).
Super Kidnappers, as in people who kidnap supers, really tweak my ability to suspend disbelief. Maybe they work in a world where superheros won’t kill, ever, but in one more realistic they would not live long.
It’s why I could not watch the last season of Young Justice.
I’m just wondering if there is a failsafe on the orbs that will activate to protect Halo. If they really are a space-ship equivalent, there must be something that kicks in if the owner is disabled for some reason.
Well we can look at a close analogy, at our technology level, namely submarines. Sadly most of the protocols are to stop the wrong people gaining access to key systems or being able to issue orders to the crew. What measures there are to keep new orders incoming (other than those already mentioned) tend to focus on the training given to the crew and measures which will keep them alive and healthy (such as life support and various defences against attack or detection).
In fact one of the most famous precautions for critical systems (such as the controls for a train) is a “dead man’s switch”. Which requires to be actively used continuously (be it holding a particular button in place or having to periodically press something upon a prompt) or else the system shuts down (or the bomb goes off, for the suicide bomber variant).
Which may be great for reducing the risk of a runaway train (or being shot by snipers, if you are close to hostages, for the latter version), it is not so great for Halo’s type of situation.
But, I do grant that Nth generation technology can probably utilise far more options than we have come up with. Sadly we have only seen “fail safe” or “are you really sure you want to use this PPO?” options, so far.
in fairness, in that season, they kidnapped, collared, THEN activated their meta-genes.
Trying to kidnap an already-active super is stupid. Kidnapping potential supers is less so.
The reason the supers in “Young Justice” were successfully enslaved is… their captors were ALSO supers, or at least worked for them. Without giving too many spoilers… Granny Goodness was involved.
Yeah, and we’ve already proven that maxima at the very least, is more than willing to kill someone to remove them as a threat.
I’m gonna call this guy “Dr. Bad Dom” because consent is key.
Honestly, to prevent Concretia taking back her body, all you really need is a couple guards with guns in the room, who have orders to put a bullet in her if you lose track of her for more than five minutes or if she shows up. I mean, she’d still have a chance at disabling them first but, given that they have that extremely creepy shock collar too, it’d be a pretty big risk.
Maxima could probably zip in there and save her just fine though.
This guy is very creepy and I support him getting taken down with extreme prejudice.
I could argue either way about an armed guard being sufficient to secure a geokinetic, but 5 minutes is waay too short to be practical. That would mean too many limitations on her deployment, with at least 2 handlers at all times and being unable to send her beyond line of sight. It negates nearly all of her astral projection advantages and turns her into just another tank.
I’d just go with a small bomb in her sinus cavity, with a watchdog timer. Blows up if it loses contact for more than a couple minutes or detects any tampering.
Maxima with maxed speed stat is hard to counter as a hostage taker. That sinus cavity bomb is probably one way to do it because you can’t really interact with that at superspeed without head going asplodey. I’d also say that when installing bombs into people you want a manual trigger just to protect your asset from technical glitches.
It’s a trade off between fail safe, and fail dangerous. If you’re holding a valuable hostage who’s otherwise easy to deal with, you want the bomb to fail safe, because you can deal with that failure, and don’t want to lose the hostage.
If you’re holding a dangerous hostile super hostage, you want the bomb to fail dangerous, because the hostage free is more dangerous than the hostage’s head decorating the walls by mistake.
Designing a good sinus cavity bomb with 2 way communications built in was why I was a dual major in college, computer engineering and human biology. It was going to be a major part of my plan for world domination.
This new villain needs to meet an anti-hero.
Mmm. What about an anti-villain instead?
I’m sure Deus would eliminate this creep in some practical yet stereotypically supervillainesque way.
Left in a room with Vale who may rip him apart or eat him…if she is Eldritch maybe send him into a spiral of pain and madness.
funny enough you usually see villains like this most often in Anti-hero stories/series. I kind of catharsis, to have this all to real world feeling dark and demented villain taken down by a brutal anti-hero instead of swooped on and taken to jail by a caped wonder man.
all the mortal villains Spawn fought, and like 80% of the villains who showed up in Witchblade were like this. and pretty much everyone *mostly* Punisher goes after (not counting cross-overs where he feels so out of place beside the costumed super people fighting space robots).
I say he needs a good case of antiphallatic shock.
This guy is starting off strong on the asshole-meter.
I hope that last, aborted message that Sydney sent out alerted the people manning comms that something is wrong.
Depends on if Leon monitors the comms or not. If he doesnt there could be a problem since, unbeknownst to Sydney, Maxima’s comm was blown up already by Brut abd Sydney’s message was sent to Maxina.
Ohhhhh my. So looking forward to Maxima getting her hands on this jerkwad. Dabbler will no doubt have some creative ideas. Maybe she has access to the dimension of ‘prison rapists’. Seriously though, Dave cut through a lot of dramatic buildup and showed us exactly how evil, sick and twisted this guy is. Yeah, I know it might be gratifying to see him Get a long drawn out comeuppance but that’s kinda dipping into that well of depravity also. IMHO, if a person is that far gone, if he can’t be rehabilitated, then put a bullet in the back of his head. Perhaps Dabbler has some high end alien tech that can massage the evil out of one’s brain. Likely prohibitions against that though.
I was thinking the tentacle dimension, but these tentacles slowly inflate over time to eventually rip you in half.
wow, to be branded worse than sciona… i don’t think i can find something more insulting than that. god i hated her…
How much would you rate that at, on a scale of “0” to “the amount Guesticus dislikes Deus”?
Deus? Hmm, trying to think back, but has deliberately caused harm to someone who wasn’t a bad guy? I kinda put Deus under the category of benevolent dictator. (Extremely hard to find). What motivates him? I tend to think that Mr. Fob here wouldn’t last long in Deus’ organization if at all. Deus doesn’t seem to have a mean streak in him, callous maybe, but it does seem that he cares for the people under his domain. Don’t know where Dave is going to take Deus, I tend to think he may be a continuing character with no real end game.
Deus has read the evil overlord list, and is applying it pretty thoughoughly.
It’s been mentioned elsewhere that living under someone doing that is pretty similar to living under a genuinly benevolant dictator.
And lets be honest, anyone trying to improve the world has to be prepared for the USA to stand in their way.
This is a comedy so many characters are parodies of stereotypes. Deus is all about super villain stereotypes. He is a evil character who is so pragmatic that he sometimes almost becomes a hero. But I probably overanalyze a simple joke character.
Deus feels like an A+ rank villain to me like Lex Luthor (when well written) or Xanatos from Gargoyles. They have criminal aspirations and lacking in morals but also a line they don’t cross and use their substantial resources to buy loyalty. Care about their henchmen, use mercenaries and/or robots for dangerous missions. Heck these kinds of villains probably offer dental plans for their henchmen and regard them as a valuable resource for the organization.
This guy is looking to fall under the B rank category, torture, enforce through fear, only loyal members are part of the inner circle…who may murder you as a way to gain loyalty from the minions you have used intimidation and torture to control. Lesser B ranks are the rapists, serial killers, mad bombers, ect…types who shouldn’t even qualify as “Super villains” because outside the colorful worlds they inhabit they would be regular sociopathic sickos and terrorists.
I never took any of the Batman villains at all seriously, even as a kid, until I watched season 1 of Gotham. Goofy gadgets and firearms are one thing, but those people have Issues.
Funny you say Batman villains, because Batman and his rogue’s gallery are some of the floatiest characters when it comes to the whole type of hero/villain ranking.
Batman with his resources always could have been an A rank superhero, but feels the most relatable and dramatic when written like a C or B rank hero. The street level getting done what the police cannot vigilante.
his villains likewise tend to float with him the “coat tails” affect. When the stories are more light hearted Batman goes up and his villains follow him; that is when you see Penguin with a giant bird’s nest hide out, a submarine, and hench men dressed like chickens for some reason; or the Joker has a small army and a giant circus tent castle headquarters. This makes then A rank villains because of their scope and resources.
But most of his villains feel they were made to be B rank, Scarecrow, Bane, Two Face, these guys don’t feel right when they are making thematic armies and have giant high tech fortresses and taking over whole cities or holding the president hostage in a hot air balloon with their faces on it. They work better as those twisted criminals on the streets having turf wars and the like. Heck in the movie Batman returns Penguin was made into a rather nasty B rank villain who was just randomly violent and implied he had been pulling a Pennywise for years abducting and murdering children (or they became that gang he had). Although Penguin is usually a lower A rank with a fancy club and thematic heists and a small army of henchmen.
funny enough there is one villain in his rogues gallery who feels like due to how boosted they’ve gotten should be more in Wonder Woman or Superman’s rogues gallery. Poison Ivy. When first introduced she was like Catwoman was back in the day a C rank villain *street level, goofy costume, mostly just robbing places*, and has gone B rank a few times (but a B+ as she was targeting specific people as an eco-terrorist), but funny enough tends to skip over the A rank to an S rank when she goes all (my army of plants shall decimate all of humanity and take over the entire Earth), you rarely see Poison Ivy in a Poison Ivy-mobile with plant henchmen trying to take over Gotham with a convoluted plan.
“Batman with his resources always could have been an A rank superhero, but feels the most relatable and dramatic when written like a C or B rank hero. The street level getting done what the police cannot vigilante.”
Kind of like Spiderman, in a way. Spidey was powerful enough to be A rank, but spent most of his time fighting small time criminals as a matter of principle. I loved the time he was invited to join the Avengers, and casually snuck into their top security meeting chamber in Avengers Mansion, shocking the heck out of them.
Exactly, Spider-man has the opposite approach as Batman.
When Batman becomes more serious his rank goes down.
When Spiderman becomes more serious his rank goes up.
Spiderman in fact I love it when he jumps from C to B rank hero by instead of just fighting the costumed thugs, muggers, and whatnot as he sees them; gets serious and pulls out the camera footage, the chemistry, and analyses it like an FBI or CIA agent to track down the root of the problem and take down the crime syndicate or gang hideout.
Spiderman is easily A+ at his best moments, simply because of his reaction speed. He can literally dodge bullets. Non-speedsters literally cannot hit him unless he lets them. The only reason he’s not S tier is because you have to reserve that slot for the reality warping heroes like dr strange, or the ultra-supers like captain marvel.
There is a misunderstanding there.
This isn’t the power ranking we are discussing; this is the effectiveness/scope ranking. A; C class super can be an A rank hero, but heck you could be an S-class in power and still end up a D rank hero.
While yes an S-class superhero is most often also an S rank hero (simply due to being powerful enough to go after big threats like meteors and planet destroying robot swarms ect..)
this isn’t that ranking; but I can understand the confusion, it uses the same letter grading system.
Z, F, D, C, B, A, S
Z rank hero: Like once a month yells at people to clean their lawns while driving around in his car just to keep his hero license and get the benefits package. (This rank does not exist for a superhero outside of comical universes with hero guilds). Can also apply to seat filler heroes drawn into the background to fill up seats to make a hero’s guild look bigger.
F rank: This is more for show. The one shot hero who has all the things to be a hero, but not really the skills needed. They have heart. This tends to be a one-off episode; the guy who wants to help out but he is in way over his head and will likely end up dead if he doesn’t stop.
D rank: the Joke hero, this hero can have impressive powers but they aren’t serious. They may fight a reoccurring villain but neither is really doing anything. They come across more like a playground fight. They lack the skills, the team work, or the motivation really to move past this. This is Great Lakes Avengers territory, Flatman, Mr. Immortal, those guys. Its more for photo ops and they may be better off doing charity drives than actually fighting crime.
C rank: your typical street level superhero. They go on patrols in the city and stop muggings, stop bank robbers, save cars out of control, and take down dangerous henchmen causing trouble in the neighborhood. But they also have a life to get back to most often and aren’t really effective beyond “fighting a symptom”.
B rank: these heroes are detectives, they go after the source of the street crime, the mob bosses, do the leg work to find informants, the drug dealers when they get the shipments. They are basically detectives with powers who often work outside the law. Batman is often a B rank hero, and Spiderman is here when he decides to stop the flow of drugs or realizes he can’t just keep taking down the guys threatening shop owners when its the mob bosses behind it.
A rank: fight national threats. They have resources, powers, a team (most often being an A rank hero is by association by being part of a team that can go after the bigger threats). basically they stop the alien invaders, the giant stone statue that came to life, and these big threats both national and international. A well organized, well known, on sight hero or team. Avengers, Justice League, Fantastic Four, ect…
S rank: Basically the in-space fighting space dragons, world destroying threats. An S-class super is often also an S rank hero granted simply because its easier for someone like Superman to go after these giant threats. But you also get teams of them; and often those A rank hero teams jump up here when the big events happen.
*Omega rank*…honestly this only happens when a hero is part some crazy big events and is really temporary. Its like the Omega-class powers; best in small doses. Flash and Supergirl have been here when they saved the multiverse. Basically to have a hero or team stay in this rank you have to have threats of this rank; which often means both likely need to be Omega-class in power as well; which results in catastrophe fatigue for the readers as there are too many (the entire solar system is about to be destroyed) level threats in a row.
the villain version is pretty similar but both really come down to how serious they are and how effective they are. The B rank for instance tends to fall into the “realism” category for both; the real dangerous vicious criminals and the heroes who use actual detective work and actually try to stop crime at the source. While C and A are where you get most comic books; the either street level guy on patrol or the ones with crazy amounts of resources, army of evil minions and a floating fortress, or the hero with a secret hero base with giant computers and a car and plane and a satellite base ect…
*also yes depending on the series both can be referred to as either “class” or “rank” or mix the two categories together for your official hero ranking having great or low power but also having or lacking the skills to utilize it effectively.
I think I over explained that.
Also pretty sure I was using the wrong word, thanks to anime like One Punch Man “rank” is used the same as “class”, which older series would use. I should be saying “list”.
A list, B List, C list, and D list.
(everything below and above is niche, which yeah I wrote out, either niche or temporary).
Like Lex Luthor is an A+ list villain while Bane is a B list villain.
Most the guys Spider man fights like Dr. octopus or Rhino tend to be C list (most of the time); some writers over due their threat levels sometime like…why would Dr. Octopus be after nuclear weapons?
*fun aside: D and Z list villains are a lot more common than heroes like that; the joke villain like Kite Man or the who cares what their name is opening act villain that has no impact on the rest of the cartoon and will never be seen or mentioned again (or the background seat fillers for the Guild of Calamitous Intent on Venture Brothers)
But what I was trying to clear up is this is different from the power ranking is all.
Thanks for the rundown – I’d seen the various ranks being bandied about for years, but without the context of what level falls where. Is there supposed to be an E-level/rank/class between the Fs and the Ds, or is it deliberately left blank to highlight just how out of their depth the Fs are against even the ‘joke’ Ds?
your welcome, I am always afraid I come across as condescending when I make some long explanation like that.
I think E is left out because its based on a grade card type system and E was often interchangeable with A as in Excellent on a grading card so to avoid confussion *even when expanding below* is left out. For Power and List you do also get a G which is above an S (I like to say Omega, but G is common enough too as the “god tier”.
F is a special case, in terms of hero rank its that one shot out of their league hero (which yeah even compared to a D are out of their league; unless a bunch of them join together and become a D as a team)
funny enough from what I’ve read a F list villain is actually ABOVE a D list villain in terms of being taken serious. Apparently an F list villain is the “goon with a name” group; the side kicks to the villain AKA the you only see them as main henchmen of the main bad guy but never on their own. Think Bebop and Rocksteady, or the main henchmen of Skeletor and Hordak (1980’s versions). Heck we even see F list villains break out and jump up the ranks; like Harley Quinn she started off as an F list villain as Joker’s sidekick but got so popular that even during the run of Batman the Animated series they started to have her strike out on her own at times…I think she jumped over to Anti-hero in recent times because of how popular she got. The premise of the Harley Quinn animated series is all about her wanting to jump up those ranks, she gets to B list but wants to be A list…heck she tries to jump to S list due to her conflicting feelings about Poison Ivy and join Darkseid.
if we look at those grades on the power class/rank scale it is ALOT simpler.
an F class in power: is the “sideshow level”. Its like the telekinetic who has to strain to move a penny a few inches, or the magnekinetic or electrokinetic that light up a light bulb or give a mild static shock anytime they want, the stretcher who is really double jointed, ect…
it why we say you can be a higher class in power but get a lower listing in your hero or villain rank due to how the character is used, their ambition, skills, and resources. Likewise a lower power can get a high rank, heck Batman and Lex Luthor are both “no class” in powers as they don’t have powers; but both claim high listing grades in the hero and villain departments.
Oh cool thanks. So even though spiderman has the power of an A rank, he stays firmly in the B rank because of the threats hes choosing to take on? Like even though he could easily join and keep up with the other avengers, he chooses to stay a purely street level hero?
yeah pretty much. Why I should be differentiating more with class/rank and using list for this type.
Spider-man power wise is an A class super (he did used to be weaker but popularity and all that) and can keep up with other Avengers on the big missions. But his hero rank tends to fall down because, yeah is a street level hero.
its not a bad thing; I mean do we want to see Spider-man with a spider-boat, spider-copter, and a Spider-head quarters fighting alien invaders every week or do we want to see Spider-man being your friendly neighborhood spider-man fighting the good fight against street crime and mob bosses. It is actually a really nice idea to have someone with genuine power staying in the C and B list territory where they can do good for the common man; instead of leaving it to guys like Daredevil and Punisher to handle it all.
So basically
Spider-Man
Power: A class
Hero List: C-B List
(Street Level thugs, mobsters, and robbers)
I dunno. Paste Pot Pete has managed to hit him.
https://www.wattpad.com/683777912-friendly-neighborhood-spider-man-chapter-1-pvp/page/2
Maybe Peter just couldnt take him seriously so his spidey sense didn’t go off. :)
A couple of my favorite comic authors bring up Pete regularly on their podcast as the dumbest villain in comics. They’ve done some strips on the topic as well, although I can’t locate any right now.
Pete got some upgrades over the years, but I still wonder how he got into print with such an awful premise.
Actually I like the theory that spiderman has a serious self-destructive guilt complex because of uncle ben. No matter how much good he does he can never forgive himself for that and develops a basically subconscious urge to always punish himself for it by allowing himself to get beat to hell in fights he should be able to easily win.
And thats why so many villains are able to hit him despite his superhuman reflexes.
“No no no, Mighty Halo was my predecessor.”
I think she would be better off saying “…”.
OK, Sydney had better start trying to figure out how she’s going to fit the word “Vermilion” casually into a sentence when work calls.
But she must also cross off at least a couple more “Make Maxima Say” words too. She has catching up to do!
“I dub this villain to be named The Vermilion Dildo.” – Sydney
Or “You would look great wearing a vermillion dress, would really set of the crazy between your ears.”
Something subtle though, you wouldn’t want to seem too urgent to drop your code word and be rescued.
:-D
Nah the bad guys clearly want her alive so she doesnt need to be subtle. I could totally see her saying something completely obvious but hilariously sarcastic like:
“Hey mom, can you come pick me up from school, the other kids are being mean.”