Grrl Power #907 – Ménage à deux et demi
Hey it’s another patented Grrl Power action sequence with 11 panels on a page. I await my Eisner nomination.
For those of you wondering about the comic making process, the transcript for this page includes the word “meatwench” to distinguish her from rockwench. That may just be how my mind works.
I know what you’re thinking. Where did Hench Wench’s skirt go in stone form? Since she has to consciously animate herself, as previously established, she did a little wardrobe changeup so she doesn’t have to think about making a stone sheet floop around her legs when she’s fighting. I guess doing that along with the waist-length hair is too much at once.
The vote incentive is updated! It’s Sydney’s debut! Well, Sydney’s been in plenty of vote incentives, but… there are nude versions over at Patreon, at the three dollar level. I figure I should actually make use of the tiers over there. I left the nudes at the $1 for six months just to make sure I could keep up with the work, and it seemed like Sydney’s debut would be a good time to make the nude pinups “official” for lack of a better term.
I honestly can’t tell if it’s well done or if it’s a little creepy. Not because Sydney looks too young… hopefully. It’s a little uncanny-valley-ish, I think. I guess no reason it can’t be both. I will say this much, this started as a paint over because I was having a ton of trouble with her body type, and Sydney wound up a biiiiit too fit. She doesn’t have ab-cleavage like that, especially under her navel. Let’s say this picture happens after she completes basic, with all the running and stuff. I’d say she PhotoShopped them, which would make sense if she’s sending Frix sexts, but I’m not sure she’s that skilled with the program.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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First time I’ve seen someone sucker punch themselves.
Kind of the inverse of when Max gave one of Harem an atomic wedgie and it sort of spread pandemonium throughout HQ…
I don’t really have anything to contribute, I just wanted to say it’s nice to see someone else who also reads/enjoys Jo from Between Failures over here.
I don’t know what Henchie is complaining about. She wasn’t in that parking lot battle a while back when Vehemence got Maxima’s nose twice. Max didn’t complain about it (openly) as must as she is.
Max is tough, HW merely has super powers.
Max has been through the training and the wars and all that stuff. Pain still hurts and it can be unexpected, but it’s not a shock the nth time around.
HW doesn’t seem to have that. It is an interesting flaw.
HW seems to be pretty new to having any sort of handle on her powers, or at least her super strength/durability powers. It’s uncertain if she’s new to most of the powers from her LLC, or just that set.
It’s possible she led with her super strength/durability because it’s her shiniest new toy. It’s also possible she lead with that because it’s the easiest to figure out.
I totally agree with your analysis; I just wanted to go a step further.
We’ve seen Max take a punch, and even get hurt. She does not like it, but it is not a shock; she gets on with business with no reduction in effectiveness. If she lost her superpowers, she’d just use her gun, fists or smarts.
OTOH, HW reacts with shock to being damaged. That’s a weakness. If she lost her superpowers, she’d collapse. This is a weakness that can be trained out of but she doesn’t seem to have gone there.
My first thought was of the childish ‘game’ where you grab someone’s hand and smack them with it.
“Stop hitting yourself”
It’s been done with portals and time travel before in various works. I’m pretty sure I’ve also seen works with multi-corporeal entities where they’ve managed it. Some on their own, and some with help.
That said, it’s pretty rare.
A variation earlier in this work, even.
lmao, Maxima seriously wondering if she unlocked a new power for a sec there.
I noticed that too, that concerned look at her fist of “What did I just do?”
That was pretty funny seeing her looking at her fist. But when you have a wide range of powers, especially in the Uber category (copyright free way of saying Superman type), especially when there are some complexities to said powers (like a sliding around stat graph), you never know when some random new power might show up while trying to hold back or by accident. See Powerpuff girls ice breath episode, or Superman shooting a mini-me from rainbow fingers or getting electric powers for a short time for…I think because he had recovered from a coma/death of superman and some reason his powers went through a weird shift…I don’t remember the details as I didn’t care for the Man of Teal thing…just as I don’t care for Hulk discovering his powers come from super satan…bad writing Marvel just…bad writing. But I digress.
its a theme for these crazy powerful characters…and Maxima is a lot less crazy than them thankfully; S class is already physics breaking and Omega is understandable; but no need to go Omega-Delux, Ludicrous, or Ludicrously Stupid class…ever….at least not with a flesh and blood super hero or other character that isn’t The Lord of Nightmares, Chousin true forms, or other Omni Beings.
but yeah, I could see Maxima one day have super breath (especially a laser beam off the tip of her tongue would be reasonable), eye beams, shooting a sea of exploding energy mine dots from her finger tips, or something as crazy as astral punch (which maybe she thought she did here like the Ancient One did to Hulk in End Game) which can also mean by channeling that sort of astral energy around one’s body actually strike an astral body as well as if they were physical.
Welp got to give points to Maxima, she’s going all out and not playing nice. Now how long till this over powered idiot is dealt with is a question, I mean once Max realizes Halo is in danger she’s probably going to go super smash bros and knock hench wench into the atmosphere so she can save Sydney.
Maxima is playing nice actually. If you notice, Hench Wench still has a non-amputated head and her arms have not been blown off. In addition, HW is not currently in the vacuum of space in orbit of Earth.
I was going to reply to this effect, but now I’ll second what you said. Max is wearing the biggest pair of kid gloves in existence here. She hasn’t even thrown a MFPunch, let alone unleashed the Fel-Cruiser-downing blast on any enemy combatants here. The “biggest” demonstration of Maxima’s, so far, puts her on par with the Tsar Bomba 50-100 megaton nuke. And we don’t have confirmation that the blast was max-output for her.
the durability from Brut doesn’t look high enough, if Maxima did go all out chances are her punch would have same energy dispersment of being hit by a small solid steel (or far more durable) cannon ball going thousands of miles her hour with all that energy going into who she hit…so splattered across the area like a popped water balloon full of gore scenario.
*PS: I know the word is real and spelled wrong but spell check isn’t giving me the right word. dispersing the force…so is there no dispersement of disperse in this language?
Dispersal?
yes, funny enough I was coming on here today to correct that myself. Yes that is the word I was looking for. Not sure why the grammar check didn’t suggest it.
That’s actually interesting that Hench Wench can astral project into a golem body and still run the fleshy one. Would this mean Connie is in an induced coma to keep her restrained, or is there a duplicator in the LLC for Wenchie?
she probably alternated back and forth quickly
If she is, then the next thing we will probably see is HW get beaten down really fast- humans cannot really multitask, and trying to do so is more akin to the way a computer does, just worse (switching back and forth really quickly).
Cue HW vomiting from the nausea of doing this then learning that her golem body makes a very good hammer when used on her own face.
But they both spoke at the same time.
Or it is the common superhero-comic trope, that when someone controls a superhuman or otherwise gets his power, he unlocks other levels of control and/or magnitude.
It happened to Iceman (x-Men) when Emma Frost controlled him, Spider-Man when Doc Ock was in control of his body, Ulysses Klaw, when Doc Doom used him during Secret Wars 1 etc.
Just a “why didn’t I think of that” moment for many superhumans.
SOOO many things are obvious when it’s other people’s stuff you are playing with. It’s the same reason why other programmers can often debug your code faster and better than you can. They see what is there, not what you thought you put there.
Yeah, people who have had the power for ever (or for a very long time) tend to get complacent at the level they have reached (maybe not ‘complacent’, maybe more ‘comfortable’ or ‘content’), someone new is examining what the new body can do and when they find something, they wonder what else it can do
Gonna bet that Sci-fright will have discovered new (and nasty) things she can use her ‘new’ body with and for that Scorpina never tried
I believe the word you are looking for is accustomed, when you are just used to doing things a specific way and things working a certain way you seldom think to take a step back and think outside that proverbial box and see something you didn’t think of before.
Yes! That’s the word, much thank yous :D
you’re welcome.
This body-double use thing seems a bit OP to me. And not really consistent with Concreta’s power as shown.
Power copiers can end up with amalgamated or augmented versions of someone’s powers. Of if they have them long enough and get more opportunities to train with them end up displaying feats the original didn’t know were possible.
She might also have additional powers of other members that allow her to do what she just did. Or like Rhuen mentioned, she might have some amalgamated version of Concretia’s powers because of other people in the LLC who we havent seen yet.
Alternatively, DaveB might have just temporarily forgotten some of the specifics of what Concretia’s powers do, even though he created them, because he was focused more on the story action :) Definitely not meaning anything insulting by that. Minor mistakes occasionally happen in intricate storylines, especially in comics. :)
By his own admission, it’s happened once before, when he forgot that Sydney’s lightbee hologram can go through solid objects when looking for a way into the Mars factory (even though just a couple of pages later it was again emphasized that the lightbee hologram is intangible when she tried to free Pixel (before she learned she can teleport). It happens sometimes when someone’s making a very intricate storyline :). It’s rare but still a possibility.
ALTERNATIVELY alternatively, Concretia might be able to do exactly what HW just did, but her body is bound, in an area where there’s nothing solid enough to help her, so it wouldnt help her.
ALTERNATIVELY alternatively alternatively, the whole body-double use thing might be possibly only when the body and the original are very close to each other, and once they’re more than a certain distance, since Concretia clearly can control cement/etc without possessing it, so Hench Wench might be just controlling the statue of her in the same way Concretia controlled the concrete when capturing Sydney.
That last alternatively is probably the correct alternatively :)
As regards the Wars factory and the Lightbee, was that a continuity error? My understanding was that the projected image could go through solid objects, but that the Lightbee actually projecting it could not. Sydney would therefore be able to stick her holo-head through the wall, but how far through the wall would depend on where in the image the Lightbee needs to be. Although Sydney could see through one solid wall like this, her image would not be able to cross the room and look through a second wall unless the Lightbee can physically get into the room – and when scouting an unknown environment with an eye to later entry, only seeing the outermost layer of rooms is rather limiting.
No it was a continuity error with the lightbee. DaveB admitted that himself in one of his previous commentaries, that he simply forgot the lightbee orb could go through solid objects until a few pages later. The projected image and the lightbee are both holographic objects, and can go through solid objects. They can also go through shields, like the kaiju shield on Alari Prime.
The holographic object also doesnt have a distance limitation from Halo’s body, unlike the physical orb does.
That last sentence was so, horribly, grammatically incorrect. Sorry :)
It seems you have Ro Jawed yourself, my condolences.
Just bury me in a shallow grave and tell my loved ones I died fighting against ninja pirate zombies.
It wasn’t a continuity error, it was a Sydney Error: she didn’t think it could go through solid objects, so she looked for a hole big enough for it to pass through
Again: there is no evidence that the Squids even had a shield, even less that Holo-Halo passed through it
No. It was a continuity error. DaveB himself said he forgot.
And yes there was evidence that the squids had a shield. It just worked different than Sydney’s shield. It made any blasts move AROUND the kaiju instead of diffusing the blast like Sydney’s shield does.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-658-round-1-fight/
Sydney even outright calls the Kaiju deflection a shield – see panel 2 below.”If his shield works like mine, then it deflects laser and whatnot, but obviously allows ‘non-threatening light’ through.”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-662-interstellar-proctologist/
The lightbee orb copy is ‘non threatening light’ – ie, it’s a hologram. It can go through shields. It can go through solid objects as well. DaveB just forgot until a few strips later in that storyline. He SAID SO in one of his statements that he forgot.
And Sydney DID know she can go through solid objects. She specifically said so during the Archon interview – see below… last panel.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-89-badgers-apparently-terrifying/
And… Sydney is an expert in these things now? The girl who got all her knowledge from Dirt media, and who only had her own shield for a very short time (and was too afraid to use them in public for an even shorter time)?
It’s just as likely that the reason her blast-to-the-face was diverted was because it was to-the-face and Squidward did it with their eyes (which also would explain how Sydney was able to apply the cosmic-enema beam)
Yes, Holo-Halo can, but what about Bee?
“And… Sydney is an expert in these things now? ”
I would actually say that Sydney was, in fact, at the time the foremost expert on the planet, if not in the entire galaxy, on what the orbs could do.
Since she was the only one to ever test what the orbs did until she joined Archon.
She was also the foremost expert on Earth about what the Kaiju’s capabilities are. Since she’s literally the only human being who has any significant fighting experience against them. The Alari probably have more experience, admittedly, albeit none of their experience helped them.
Plus I just showed three links, showing EXACTLY what he comm orb does, and what she saw the kaiju do when she shot at it the first time with the PPO. Why are you ignoring that?
“Yes, Holo-Halo can, but what about Bee?”
Yes. Bee is able to go through solid objects too.
1) Look at the links I presented. She was buried in rubble, and the lightbee went through that before also going through the kaiju shield.
2) The lightbee is not tethered to her, unlike the actual orb. Because the lightbee is a hologram of the physical orb. Why is it your default opinion, despite seeing evidence to the contrary, that holograms are going to be tangible?
to first point out:
Pander is 100% correct and has provided all the necessary evidence to prove it. The Light bee like holo-Sydney can pass through solid matter.
However I feel one word may be causing the problem, “hologram”
technically this isn’t what the light bee or “holo-Sydney” are. I doubt there is a word in English for what they are and a long list of adjectives would be in order given the specifics of the design like, “Quantum Tunneling entanglement with user interactive pseudo-space point…that produces visible pseudo-light and capable of producing a primary sensory feed back projection of the user…with upgrade options for denser mass displacement/replacement of projection”
in quick terms; not a hologram. A hologram actually IS tangible…to a certain degree. Light has physical presence it bounces off of solid objects (its how we see), a hologram is light bouncing around to produce an illusion of a physical object. However light cannot pass through solid (opaque) objects, certain crystal or lack there of structures it bends and bounces and passes through (clear objects); but you aren’t going to have a hologram actually pass through someone’s head or stone rubble like it is phasing. You can make holograms fake this by scattering or rearranging the machinery producing the hologram to the other side of an object like a puzzle piece, but this isn’t actually passing through it but going around it.
This means the light bee and holo-sydney are not light and therefor not technically holograms. Altered-Dark Space Neutrinograms perhaps but definitely not photons.
For simplicities sake we can say hologram in a pop culture sense; but to be clear even the holodeck from Star Trek weren’t technically holograms either. At least not fully a holographic skin over force field skeletons/maps with internal projectors for the holographic skin.
I agree with everything you said Rhuen. Especially hte part where you say ‘Pander is 100% correct.’ That was totally the best part. :) One day Guesticules will say that to me about Deus’s greatness as well.
But seriously, the main reason I use the word hologram, despite it not being a scientifically accurate ‘hologram’ (aside from that it was used in the comic as well) is because I just don’t have a better word for it. :) Like you said, a more appropriate word probably doesnt currently exist as a single word. Or if there is, it definitely won’t roll off the tongue like ‘hologram’ does. :)
Stand me corrected, then. Maybe I was influenced by considering it a ‘reasonable’ limitation on an otherwise very strong Power – a way to allow Sydney to see enough to be interesting, while still giving a well-prepared opponent options for hiding the good stuff.
Well the limitation on the comm orb is that she can’t see illusions through the hologram.
I mean there might be an unlock for that, but currently, she can’t.
Alternatively, Concretia was lying to Halo as part of a larger plan to get her on their side.
If Concretia was lying to Halo, then Dave was lying to us in 904 when Concretia’s fob-wielding handler arrived and declared her a bad girl simply because she failed to communicate Halo’s range vulnerability.
We saw Comcretia use a concrete sandworm to swallow Sydney’s orbs while at the same time inhabiting a golem, so she’s clearly able to manipulate stuff that she’s not inhabiting. Maybe while she was in her meat she just instructed the cement in the golem to take a punch.
Ah… So Hench Wench’s crew is in with “Daddy’s” group, it seems.
Seems like it :(
yeah – pretty much confirmation that the geokinesis comes from Concretia, BUT I would like to say the cloaked fellows aren’t necessarily well known to anyone but Concretia – it could be some kind of complex scheme inside the LLC or tangent to it and slightly overlapping. That would, however, require a level of narrative complexity that I almost hope is NOT one of DaveB’s goals – releases are already bordering on painfully slow (though satisfying enough to keep me coming back, of course, like a lot of us), but adding in a sub organization will indeed need to be explained over the course of at least a week (Real world time) at some point, if not longer, to allow for surprise from various protagonists, etc…
Wait? The body and astral projection body can be moved at the same time? Or did she return to her body after making the stone her, and is controlling the body using stonekenesis?
Wenchie is speaking (and reacting in pain from) both bodies in the last panel. That would imply that someone in the LLC has duplication powers.
DUN, DUN, DUN…..
Or Hive Mind like Harem;
or mirror movement like the light bee only as an astral projection
or the dangerous option Mental Fragmentation
*if an astral projection is treated like a dream projection only with more substance; then either through strong will…or reducing the faculties of the body or the projection; you can operate as multiple people at once despite having one mind. Although this can get weird as subconscious aspects end up controlling the body or the projection, and you get one or the other being sociopathic, horny as hell, having questionable ethics, or more reserved than you…and not always in the cartoony (different aspects of my personality split) but subtle differences or extreme degrees of focus. Think of it as a Tulpa on a leash. Its still you, but fragmentation makes it questionable what YOU even is.
As evidence of how this work: think of every dream you ever had where there are other people, creatures, demons, whatever in that dream you are interacting with. They talk, make plans, move about, you the dream viewer have the impression you don’t control them and they act out as characters in the dream…however they aren’t autonomous. Remember its a dream, every single one of those people, monsters, sleep paralysis demon, characters saying and doing and interacting with “you” and each other are ALL YOU. They are all in your mind, being created by your mind, and controlled by your mind.
Now imagine doing this, but as a super power where these characters can be projected into the real world. Your mind is still controlling the projections, just not the conscious mind; not completely without a strong will
Remember Harem has a hive mind BECAUSE she has duplication powers. To a point, anyways.
Another possibility would be for the astral projection to simply be treated as additional limbs and senses. For most people, that would result in an inability to control them at all. For some, they could do one or the other, but not both. For an exceptional few, both could be controlled, but coordination would be hell, sensory overload would be endemic, and exploring them for the first time in a combat situation would be an invitation to disaster… much like this one.
My source is having had dreams in which I was a multi-corporeal entity. Those tend to go much better before I achieve lucidity than they do after, though I *am* slowly getting better at them. At least, so long as it’s a very limited multi-corporeal. If it’s a swarm… just no.
Yeah I should have thought of that too given its how I explained elemental alignment/attunement in my Aesperia series. The Astral Quality of an individual matches that of specific materials or forces in nature and through practice can deform the astral body to spread out and change shape to interact with the astral plane bodies of those materials and/or forces (astral imprint quality/signature), and then take control of them through this process as if they were extensions of one’s own body. Something that in this setting normally just makes it easier to use magic of that type but with practice can go up the -kinetic abilities. Including the distant viewing through those elements as an additional skill.
(very hard to hide from someone who has mastered “Wind Sight”)
Alternatively, it could be either a side effect of rockwench being in physical contact with meatwench, or a natural aspect of Concretia’s powers, which is currently suppressed by the LLC’s sedation of her human form.
I think the power works so you only need to have a tiny bit of your astral bod inside of your meat bod or stone bod to control it. Maybe she’s hiding herself underground and has the tip of her toe inside her stone bod and her fingertips inside her meat bod. That would require pretty epic multitasking.
It would also mean there’s a hidden range limit on her ability to pilot both bodies at the same time.
Gotta admit, this page took me a little bit to figure out. Maybe because I wasn’t expecting Concretia to count as Hench Wench’s ‘boss’? Also, gotta love Max looking at her fist like ‘What the hell?’ XD
My understanding is that Conretia just has to work for the same people that Hench Wench works for in order for Wenchy to get her powers.
No that’s not how an LLC works. She’d have to be put in a leadership position, which is why this seemed odd to a lot of people and why people thought maybe there was another geokinetic. Just working ‘FOR’ the other people would not mean she’s a boss, which is what you have to be for HW to get your powers.
So apparently one of those hooded figures (or the person who is boss OF those hooded figures) is in an LLC -with- Concretia, flying girl, and Brut (and whoever else is in it). Although still odd since Concretia isnt actually a boss from what we’ve seen.
or everyone with powers (read everyone) was given a “leadership role” with the exception of HW giving HW a large amount of powersets to suckerpunch people with and probably enough bureaucracy that HW can do whatever the hell she likes and still be working in the llc’s “best interests”
Just because she has a limited partnershipness, doesn’t mean she can do shit about it, specially with her body strapped to a bed by a toxic drip
A limited partnership is different than an LLC.
I’m sure Guesticules would willingly adapt his phrasing to whatever best suits the formalities of the organisation. I must admit, while I know conceptually that LLPs and LLCs are technically different things, I do not know what differentiates them nor what the ‘proper’ name for a LLC’s top tier would be.
Yes, was meaning the partners in the L.L.C., and not everyone will be at the same level
For purposes of game/story the differences don’t much matter. However the contract allowed HW to receive powers from the LLC, it allowed others to put the powers into the LLC.
HOOD ONE: Here, sign this, it means our LLC owns your powers.
CONCRETIA: You can’t take my powers with a contract.
HOOD TWO: We don’t want to. It’s a formality.
HOOD ONE: (holds up button)
CONCRETIA: (signs)
Essentially the only thing Concretia has to do to be counted as part of the LLC is to sign in the right spot – which “daddy” can force her to do. But said LLC only exists for the purpose of boosting Hench Wench’s powers. They’re just abusing a legal loophole in her contract based power set. It probably doesn’t reflect the actual power dynamic in that group at all. Heck, they could even sign in some supers that have no clue about the actual plans, just bluffing them with the supposed business opportunity.
Somewhere there’s a website:
“FREE STUFF FOR SUPERS dot COM.
Join our LLC today at NO COST and get a FREE Maxima T-shirt just for joining!
Every month, we send you FREE STUFF. Free For All Supers – no matter your power! Just fill out the form to join TODAY for your FREE STUFF!”
What percentage of adolescent supers would sign up immediately?
Sadly, I have the feeling that number is upwards of 80%. More sadly, (or is that more optimistically?), that’s not new. It was upwards of 80% as of at least 50 years ago, based on the people I’ve met and their attitudes. Just to note, it’s not just adolescents. It’s anyone who perceive themselves to be poor. Affluent people might not realize this, but that’s most people.
TBH I’m sure it would include me as an adolescent. C’mon, FREE STUFF!!!
As a long time GM of a superhero Pen&Paper RPG, here’s how I would set up this situation:
“Daddy” is most likely the leader or at least a major player in a cult/secret organisation centered on humans vs superhumans (since his two bodyguards have not a superhuman build, just trained normals). They are not above using superhumans as cannon fodder though.
They have somehow hired the group of Brüt, Connie and unnamed flying girl. Most likely via Concretia, who is under control by this cult (most likely unknown to Brüt & Co.). This group has hired Wenchie as additional muscle/Ace in the hole. Since all three are equal partners, Wenchie has made them sign as an LLC and gotten their powers. So far, she has not shown any other powers than Flight (UFG), Superstrength and toughness (Brüt) and Geokinesis/Ghost form/Stone possession (Concretia).
As stated in another comment, I would not rate her ability to control both the concrete and flesh bodies simultaneously as a new power, just an advanced application of the same power. Concretia maybe never saw this possibility or didn’t care for it. The same happens a lot in Superhero comics, best example is in X.Men, when Emma Frost controls Iceman and uses his powers in new ways and with a magnitude that Bobby Drake never achieved before.
That sounds plausible. The LLC structure used to power-up HW only means that Concretia, Brüt, and UFG are grouped on the same level and that HW is subordinate to that group. It’s presumably feasible for the LLC, as a single entity, to be subcontracted by the larger organisation represented by ‘Daddy’.
Admit it. She’s having fun here.
Dave, you should save the Maxima-double-teamed references for your NSFW vote incentives (patreaon). Just sayin’.
yes please
I…. er, third (?) that motion.
Henchie might want to quit while she still has some teeth left.
This vote incentive may be my favorite thus far.
This goes to show that super strength and speed and whatnot are not a replacement of actual combat training – at least not when you’re dealing with other supers
Maxima double teamed? I’ll buy THAT for a dollar
It’s probably something as mundane as routine sparring sessions with multiple Harems simultaneously.
Thaaaat’s gonna leave a mark.
Well, more marks, anyway…
HW’s gonna need dentures, after this. Maybe some rebuilding.
I have seen someone join an LLC unwilling. That was a long and very messy story. Literally messy with people working at a dump.
The way I see it, Concretia is clearly part of whatever is going on, but from her words and actions with Sydney, not willing. Henchie is also part of whatever plot is afoot against Max and Sydney, but we need more information to say who is on what side. It does make me wonder what Hench Wench thinks of ‘Daddy’ and his crew. Is she a willing participant in what happened to Concretia? If so, I want Max to turn her into paste.
It would be a bit of a twist if Hench Wench is really running things for this crew. Again, it wouldn’t be the first time I have seen a new employee take complete control of a small corporation and wreaking havoc with said group. It rarely ends well and I don’t think Henchie is going to enjoy the consequences of antagonizing Maxima.
Yeah there is a reason several of us thought his was a code clusterfuck situation with three different groups involved (counting alien mercs as one), because Concretia didn’t look to be in a position of power and Hench Wench had displayed Geokinesis but not petramorphic possession (AKA: Earth Elemental Spirit Astral Projection…or whatever spell mixing term your fantasy game prefers; personally prefer Astral Quality Earth; with elemental spirit as a sub-set feat).
Anywho, she is clearly unwillingly part of the group, and given the way the cloaked douche was acting it didn’t seem likely she’d be given any sort of authority. Which tells us one of two things.
A: Forced into an LLC against her will
or
B: Hench Wench’s powers don’t work the way she thinks and its psychosomatic.
Also Hench Wench just did a quantum link multi-body…which screws with several theories we had in the comments of past pages…although Concretia did imply her body was unconscious when she used her powers so either this is a feature that may have come up later and she is now in an induced coma; or Hench Wench has been practicing with these powers and discovered a few things Concretia didn’t…not impossible. Power Copiers can be a pain if they get more practice or are more creative than the people they copied the powers from.
Although the double body thing could also be due to an amalgamation affect. A power copier copying several different powers causing weird fusion powers to result.
You don’t have to actually have any power to be in a position of power
Plenty of middle management (and even some junior senior management) fit that bill, heck, there are partners who are mostly their simply for the numbers (and whatever cash the ‘real’ partners can force out of them)
Also hence the Hitchhiker’s Guide quote: “A president has little real power, their job is to distract from it.”
While that is a humorous quote, and the degree to which it’s true may explain how this country has survived 45 presidencies (a few of them seemed to be honest to goodness well-intentioned people, but a lot of them have not. Also, just because one has good intentions does not mean one will get good results), I feel it mostly applies to political presidents of governments that were designed to have a power separation.
Countries with presidents who are actually dictators? Does not apply.
Companies? Only applies to the extent that the president is either apathetic or uninvolved with what the company is actually doing. Sure, that does describe a lot of companies. But there are other companies where the president is very much involved with the stuff the company does and has the amount of influence their position is reputed to have. And there are other companies which have basically been done in by an action of a president who was either corrupted or incompetent, and usually it’s difficult to tell the difference without following that president around and poking into their private business.
That was actually not bad on the creative side of things, even if she didn’t have what it takes to defeat Maxima that kind of feint would have worked against just about anyone else.
If only Henchie had remained focused (well, more focused)
My only question about the incentive (which is great btw) is how is Sydney taking the picture?
She doesn’t have the lighthook in her hand.
Note what ball she does have in her sweaty little hand (and if her hand isn’t sweaty doing this, she’s doing something wrong… )
Mirror, natch.
Who is holding the mirror? Unless she installed one above her bed next to the skylight
Maybe wathere she’s using for the pictur is s on a timer?
Apparently you actually don’t know what I’m thinking, since it’s actually “wait, she can move both bodies at once?” and has nothing to do with the skirt. :P
Okay, everyone who guessed that the masked guys are the ones in charge of the Super LLC and put Concretia in it as a boss despite her being a prisoner won. Congrats :)
yeah, it is surprising she would be given a position of “boss”; although boss in name only on a legal document and still an unwilling participant is looking to be the result.
This however does mean one important thing. Hench Wench is wrong that her boss has to be a super villain. So some aspects of her power are clearly psychosomatic.
We still don’t know that they are the boss, and not just hired help themselves
No, we already know Cree is a villain, she is just an unwilling participant in this (allegedly)
We know Maggie is often the villain in the X-Men, doesn’t mean he doesn’t do some good sometimes, or help them fight another villain… like Doc Doom
No we do not know that she is a villain at all. We just know that she is being forced to do this. That means she lacks the mens rea to be committing the crimes which would make her a villain. Each time we’ve seen her, she has not been in control of the choices she was making. First because of a vehemic influence, and now because of extreme duress and torture when she does not comply.
She is being forced to do this
And remember: some participants during the Rumble enjoyed being there
How many of them ‘conveniently’ claimed coercion after they found out they could get away with it?
We saw at least one (Boilerplate Boy?) immediately claim that the second he heard about the Aggro-Aura
And yes, Barberian was only there because his buddies were there, but if his buddies are villains, what does that make him?
Occam’s Razor
Besides, if every person they come up against becomes an ally, that would get damn boring damn fast
So far, the only recurring character who has remained a villain, is SmugD, even Sci-fright ended up being ‘not quite so bad afterall’
“And remember: some participants during the Rumble enjoyed being there”
They enjoyed being there because ‘every societal switch had been flipped’ when Vehemence told them to go fight. Because of the vehemic aura. And the longer the fight went on, the more doubt they were having as to ‘why they hell they were even there.’ Several people even said so outright, other than Barberian, like Hex and Glowbug.
“How many of them ‘conveniently’ claimed coercion after they found out they could get away with it?”
You’re making an awful lotta assumptions about their actual thoughts. Once Vehemence was out of the picture, most were really confused and when they heard about how Vehemence had been making them fight, they knew why. Most of them didnt even have records and didnt WANT records. This is not exactly a criminal history. You can’t then make the assumption of a criminal history when there was none, as there’s a presumption of innocence.
“Occam’s Razor”
Occam’s razor would be to use the evidence that we have clearly had explained to us. The rumble fight was Vehemence’s fault. He influenced everyone to be there. No need to make assumptions about secret criminal history of various people beyond that, unless you see examples of it happen or talked about, as in the case of Jabberwocky,Vektor, and Opal. And we CAN assume that there were no others, because only Opal and Vektor were actually incarcerated (and brought out thanks to Deus putting them to work in Galytin, because Deus believes in reform. God bless that wonderful man. And Jabberwocky got put on a work release plan working for Archon (by her own choice).
“So far, the only recurring character who has remained a villain, is SmugD, even Sci-fright ended up being ‘not quite so bad afterall’”
1) Deus has not been a villain at all
2) Sciona actually was shown to be VERY bad after all. Once she got back to her planet, before she realized it was destroyed, she was saying how the Alari Empire would capture them, go to Earth, enslave Earth, learn the secrets of the Supers,and use them a battle thralls at BEST. Shen when she came backs he immediately started consolidating her power again in South America.
Sciona = Bad Girl
Deus = Pinnacle of Nobility
And same goes with secret innocent history
We only saw Vektor, Opal and Kevin incarcerated because they were the only named perps that people would care about knowing what happened after. Fairly sure a decent number of the participants would also have been incarcerated, just not shown because that has no impact on the story (and would require DaveB to spend too much time on coming up with an extended backstory for bit characters
And no, there is nothing noble about SmugD, he is nothing more than a charismatic self-serving arsewhipe
Vektor and Opal were specifically put in containment, and Deus had to talk to Maxima to get them taken out and put into his custody, which they were, because Opal opened a portal for Deus later on (black reliquiry).
Jabberwocky was specifically stated to have had priors, and she volunteered for going into the Archon work release program instead of jail, and she stated to Sydney that she HAS robbed places and fought police before, although it seems like she did it more because she’s an adrenaline junkie than for the money itself.
NO OTHER PARTICIPANTS were ever stated to have any priors, and so you really have no reason to assume they were incarcerated until it’s stated that they have been. In fact, most of them probably have never been incarcerated, since Archon completely underestimated how many supers were in the US in the first place… which would be a lot easier to find out if they had been incarcerated previously.
“And no, there is nothing noble about SmugD, he is nothing more than a charismatic self-serving arsewhipe”
You say that, but I have faith that will eventually grow out of this completely illogical and I am sure temporary phase which you’re going through, where you think the world’s most perfect man isn’t brimming with nobility. I can tell because you’ve already admitted one of his many virtues – his charismatic nature. Brimming with virtue, much like George Washington or a brawnier, billionaire version of Mother Theresa.
Again: they were specifically stated because they had an impact on the story
Are you honestly going to claim, that just because we didn’t see them getting incarcerated, that no one else had priors? All 27 odd extras were all perfectly innocent law-abiding citizens that Kevin just happened to snare in his mind-warp shenanigans?
And not one has been ticketed for speeding? Or jay-walking? Or carrying an ice-cream in the back pocket (a completely legit law), or simple public intoxication?
You know who else has charisma? Lucifer Morningstar!
Yes, I tend to assume that if someone has not been arrrested or I have no reason to think they are a criminal based on existing evidence, that they have not been arrested and are not a criminal. In other words, I give a presumption of innocence, since that’s how the law works. And yes, All 27 odd extras were all perfectly innocent, law-abiding citizens.
Go outside and talk to 27 people. The stats are overwhelmingly in your favor that none of them will be criminals.
I need to also respond to ‘being ticketed for speeding’ and ‘jay walking’ would not actually make you a criminal that would go to jail. Jaywalking is just considered an infraction usually, not even a misdemeanor. Speeding is a ‘traffic violation’ – which also is less than a misdemeanor. They’re as close to non-crimes as any crime can be.
Carrying an ice-cream in the back pocket is a law on the books, true… in Alabama. It was a law in Alabama because horse thieves used to put ice cream cones in their pocket to lure horses away in order to NOT be charged with stealing. Soooo Alabama made it illegal to put ice cream in your back pocket. The reason it never was taken off the books is there were never any people charged with that, and since horse theft is not exactly a big thing anymore, it’s unlikely that it ever will be taken off the books. Even if it WAS a crime today that someone would actually get arrested for…. they’re not in Alabama. And no, I don’t think any of the other 27 were even arrested for public intoxication, or there would have been some sort of arrest record. Not to mention public intoxication isn’t exactly a violent crime. Public intoxication is actually one of the lightest misdemeanors on the books (except in Florida, where it’s a misdemeanor in the second degree, because Florida drunks are a special type of drunk), and in many states, public intoxication alone is not enough, it’s just an element of the crime – you also need to be disruptive and ACTIVELY bothering others. Also in many states, public intoxication is not a crime, period, like Nevada, Montana, Missouri, and most of Wisconsin. In any case, it doesn’t exactly make you a criminal any more than Sydney is a criminal (even when she has stuff on her record as well). It’s definitely not a ‘violent crime’ – which would not require that much influence from Vehemence to get to fight for no reason.
By the way, it’s also illegal to kill Bigfoot. That’s a law too. :)
“You know who else has charisma? Lucifer Morningstar!”
And before his fall, Lucifer Morningstar was the most loved of all God’s archangels. Then he lost a whole lot of his charisma. Deus hasn’t fallen. :)
Also…. Jesus and the Buddha and Moses and the Mahavira and Confucius were all really charismatic also.
All praise Deus, amen.
Btw when I say criminals, I mean violent criminals. Especially since it’s in the context of vehemic energy. There are so many insane and stupid laws on the bloated books that you can probably find something harmless or stupid that someone’s guilty of as at least an infraction for a lot of people. That seems to be more a problem with the law than the people.
I appreciate that, as a lawyer in a system that only allows binary verdicts, you’re obliged to presume innocence in the absence of a given degree of evidence (with said degree in part determined by what’s being alleged). However, that is not always the case.
Both Guilty and Not Guilty imply that enough evidence has been presented to definitely rule out the other verdict, when in many cases this simply is not so – the evidence presented is incomplete, equivocal, or simply not strong enough to support the allegation made. This is where the so-called ‘Scottish verdict’ of Not Proven shows its value. It allows the judgement to honestly reflect the fact that it was not possible to prove the accused guilty or to prove them not guilty.
Getting back to the topic, I would argue that Not Proven is the only possible verdict on the criminal record of the remaining participants in the Restaurant Rumble. We have evidence of the previous records of Vekter, Opal, and Jabberwokky; we have evidence, if memory serves, of the lack of record for the Barberian; for the rest we have no (on-page) evidence either way. We cannot prove them Guilty, but by the same token we cannot prove them Not Guilty.
“It allows the judgement to honestly reflect the fact that it was not possible to prove the accused guilty or to prove them not guilty.”
I don’t really consider it good logic to say that, despite not being able to prove guilt, that we should to by the assumption that the person is guilty. I also don’t think it’s good logic to say that in the absence of any evidence that anyone was even proven ANYTHING, that we should assume there was any reason to prove guilt or innocence in the first place. All we knos is the people who DID have criminal records. Three people, out of the entire group – Vektor, Opal, and Jabberwocky. And Vehemence was culpable as well, by his own admission. And also based on Vehemence’s own admission, those three were not the ones who decided any of this. Vehemence SPECIFICALLY stated that he made Vektor think it was his own idea, when it never was.
So I think it’s a bad precedent to say ‘well, all available evidence says none of them were villains ore guilty of any crimes, but we should say they’re criminals anyway by general assumption just because.’
We don’t even need to get into whether to prove them guilty or innocent – there’s nothing to prove them guilty or innocent of in the FIRST PLACE, aside from if they’re guilty or innocent of starting the parking lot fight, which we know for a fact they were NOT, by Vehemence’s own admission and proven example. And, again, the only thing we have as any actual proof of prior wrongdoings is that Vektor, Opal, and Jabberwokky have criminal records involving violent crimes or accomplices to violent crimes with an arrest record. It makes little to no sense to assume anyone else does, much less that they’re ‘villains,’ until that would be actually stated. Like I said before, several members of Archon themselves have actual arrest records (Sydney, Heatwave, Achilles, and Mr Amorphous), and they are not villains either. Not sure how you can give the villain title to someone who doesnt even have THAT much evidence going against them.
Also, just to be frank, if you cannot prove a person is guilty, then they are, by simple logic, not guilty. It would be horrifically dystopian to come at it by any other logic. And binary thinking or not, you have to start with SOME sort of burden of proof. And since we don’t live in medieval times, we go by a burden of proof favoring the individual being innocent until proven guilty, barring any evidence to the contrary at the VERY least.
Not all warrants are for violent crime, neither are records
If it’s okay for you to assume that because we didn’t see them arrested means they were innocent, then the fact we didn’t see or hear of them being released means they were wanted somewhere for something, even if it was unpaid parking fees
“I don’t really consider it good logic to say that, despite not being able to prove guilt, that we should to by the assumption that the person is guilty. – Pander
Good. I quite agree with you; if you think that’s what I was arguing then I obviously failed to explain myself properly. (If it was meant in reply to Guesticules, then sorry for picking up on the wrong bit!)
I’m not really referring to whether the participants in the Restaurant Rumble should be charged on the basis of that incident, but on what we can say about their record (or lack thereof) prior to it. It’s not even an allegation, it’s a background question of whether a given participant does or does not have a previous police record.
“If you cannot prove a person is guilty, then they are, by simple logic, not guilty” – Pander (my emphasis added)
Only in one specific and limited context, as defined by the inbuilt assumptions of a binary-verdict legal system. This assumes that the evidence available to the Court is complete, perfectly reliable, and not contradictory; in the real world, every one of those assumptions may be subject to question. In this particular case, while ARC no doubt has access to the records that would allow them to pick out those participants with previous, we the readers are limited to what DaveB chooses to tell us. ‘Absence of evidence’ does not equate to ‘evidence of absence’: we didn’t see or hear of them being released, we didn’t see or hear of them being detained (for longer than necessary to run the paperwork for the records check), therefore we cannot make a reasonable judgement about whether or not they “were wanted somewhere for something”.
I agree with the logic that every person is, by definition, either guilty or not-guilty of a given allegation. I disagree with the implicit assumption that the evidence available to the Court will always be sufficient to prove which of those is the case, even to the ‘balance of probabilities’ level – you do not have the option to cross-examine omniscient God Himself. I therefore support a trinary verdict system, which accepts the existence of that uncertain middle ground, over a binary system which assigns the middle ground to one extreme or the other.
Analogy time. Let’s say there was a plane going from Heathrow to NY (evidently in better times!). There is evidence that Yorp was on the plane, there is evidence that I was in London but did not board that flight, you know that there were many other passengers, but you do not have any evidence about who they were. Based on the evidence available to you, the location of Yorp is proven to be NY, the location of myself is proven to be Not-NY, and the location of Guesticules is Not Proven. Additional evidence may later emerge that allows you to prove Guesticules‘s location one way or the other, but it is outside the limits of your knowledge at the time of the judgement. Makes sense?
“it’s a background question of whether a given participant does or does not have a previous police record.”
Well what I’m saying is the burden of evidence is on you to prove they did have a previous police record, not other people to prove they didnt. That’s all I mean. :) You can’t prove they did, so they don’t unless definitively shown otherwise.
“Only in one specific and limited context, as defined by the inbuilt assumptions of a binary-verdict legal system. ”
How’s how criminal convictions work. You either are guilty or you are innocent. It’s obviously going to be ‘inbuilt assumptions of a binary-verdict legal system.’ It would be impossible to prove anything otherwise or have a functional free society. I’m mainly arguing about who has the burden to prove ANYTHING about another person doing anything criminal, or having a record, or whatever. The perspective of ‘pics or it didn’t happen’ when you’re making theory on if someone did something holds far more weight than ‘for all we know, there were more criminals in the group.’ Because you have no proof of it, not just from a legal standpoint, but from a narrative storytelling standpoint.
“you do not have the option to cross-examine omniscient God Himself.”
Although in a fictional story you can ‘cross examine God’ – you can look at what the author (ie, the god of that fictional universe) says actually happened, and then use that as evidence. Evidence and burden of evidence is not just for the law, but also for narrative cohesive storytelling. :) At least good storytelling. DaveB tends to be pretty consistent on his storytelling, so I generally go by the idea that if something did not happen in the story that he’s telling, and he hasn’t made some allusions that it might have happened at least, then it did not happen.
Otherwise any sort of cockamamie theory can be used without any relation to any story set-up that’s been given so far in the narrative. :)
For example, if I said ‘Frix might actually have teleportation powers where he can go from where he is out in space to Earth instantaneously, but he doesnt because the ship needs him in case they need urgent repairs.
There’s absolutely no set-up in the story for it. But just my saying Frix has some sort of power that there’s no legitimate reason to say he has, and saying the reasoning is we havent seen him say he DOESNT have that power…. doesn’t mean it’s a good argument to say he has that power.
Wow that last sentence was confusing but I read it over three times and it’s correct :).
Just to make this perfectly clear: not saying that they all had a record and were all arrested, just claiming doubt that none of them did not have some sort of record and slash or an outstanding warrant for their arrest for something that had nothing to do with supers
You’re putting words into my mouth. Maybe the problem is the difference in mindset/training between a lawyer who has to work within the abstractions of the legal system and a scientist who has to work with the imperfections of the real world.
(I’ve changed terminology slightly below, in case that makes the difference clearer. Everyone has a record one way or the other, i.e. their previous interactions with the Law. A dirty record includes interactions which could be counted against them in the given context, a clean record does not. For purposes of the argument, it does not matter what criteria are used to define a problematic interaction.)
I am not saying that any of the participants in the Restaurant Rumble definitely do have a dirty record, apart from the few for whom that has been specifically mentioned. I am not saying that any of them definitely do have a clean record, apart from the one for whom it was specifically mentioned (and my memory may be wrong on that count). For the vast majority of them, there is currently no evidence one way or the other as to the state of their record. We are not justified in claiming without evidence that it is dirty; equally, we are not justified in claiming without evidence that it is clean.
I am not talking here about the judgement which a court of law would be obliged to render, but about the true-or-false question of whether a given participant has a dirty or a clean record. The prosecution cannot prove that Glowbug does have a dirty record, based on what has been shown to date. The defence similarly cannot prove that she does not: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The only exception to that principle is if all of the potential evidence is known to have been examined; in this case, for example, if we knew that there were only three previous offenders in the Rumble, then our knowledge that Vekter, Opal, and Jabberwokky have dirty records must mean that everyone else is clean. Unless I missed it, we have not been given such information. Therefore, until and unless more evidence comes to light, Glowbug’s status has not been proven one way or the other.
Your parallel to claiming a surprise Power for Frix doesn’t hold up. That would be introducing a new element, for which you either need correspondingly strong circumstantial evidence or explicit Word of DaveB. The question of whether each participant has a dirty record or a clean one is not a new element: it is implicitly inherent in the on-page statement that the state of their record will affect their options in the aftermath of the Rumble.
Posing the question does not by itself create any evidence with which to answer it, and asserting an answer for a given individual requires the introduction of a new element to support that answer. Unless I’ve missed it, we only have Word of DaveB for four participants – Vekter (dirty), Opal (dirty), Jabberwokky (dirty), and Barberian (clean). As things stand, the rest of the participants have had no further interaction with the observed plot; until one does, there will be no evidence with which to resolve the uncertainty in their individual status either way. (From the reader’s viewpoint, that is – in-Universe, the answer of course already exists and will have set off different chains of consequences depending on what it was, but those have not yet come back into the reader’s view.)
I can see how you, as a lawyer in a system which is obliged to assume innocence in the absence of proven guilt and is obliged to render a verdict one way or the other within the confines of a single trial, assume that the only participants with dirty records are those for whom it’s specifically mentioned on page. In my line of work, those obligations do not apply, and may be positively dangerous. I cannot treat “not proven to contain contaminant” as if it were equivalent to “proven not to contain contaminant”, especially when I have not yet seen the results of the test.
To reiterate: I am not claiming that any of the participants in the Restaurant Rumble definitely do have a dirty record (besides those explicitly stated). I am claiming that there is a difference, in fact if not in law, between “their record has not yet been proven to be either dirty or clean” and “their record has been proven to be clean”. And that since this is a question of fact and not of law, we can only safely make statements within the limitations of what has been proven.
… That ran rather longer than expected, both in length and composition time. Sorry!
I wasn’t saying none of them have records and none of them were ever arrested or have outstanding warrants.
Three of them did, and as far as we have any reason to know, only three of them did – Opal, Vektor, and Jabberwokky. Vektor and Opal had actual records, and Jabberwokky also had a warrant out on her, which is why Archon was able to offer her the work release deal in the first place.
Could others have warrants or records? Yeah. But that should not be the assumption until DaveB presents examples of it in the comic, since the default idea in a narrative should not be something that we have not seen yet (and in fact have seen evidence to the contrary – that most of them were just trying to live non-criminal lives – which might be one of the reasons Archon so greatly underestimated how many viable fight supers there probably are in the US. We also did see after Maxima’s plasma blast demonstration to the press that the demonstration would hopefully be a way to dissuade other supers who were thinking about engaging in criminality from doing so.
I’m not sure why there should be an argument on if they had warrants for non-super-related things btw, when talking about if those supers were villains. So far the only person who has engaged in any criminality other than Vektor, Opal, and Jabberwokky would be Concretia, who it has already been demonstrated is doing so against her will.
And I’m pleasantly surprised that you did not count Heavenly Sword as a villain or criminal, as she is a bodyguard, not a criminal (as far as we currently know, since she was clearly let go from Archon after the fight without the same sort of result that happened to Vektor, Opal, and Jabberwokky).
A very legal profession, for that most noble and non-criminal of men, Deus.
All praise Deus, amen.
The Clowns everywhere remark is funnier to me thanks to watching Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss where Hell seems to have a healthy population of clown and clown make up like demons.
That probably started with Spawn, and that evil fat-fuck, and IT (the charismatic Curry version, not the psychotic freak version)
Above all, the classic “Killer Klowns from Space”.
It started with Opera having jesters in scenes of Hell, as well as some actually being the villain of said operas with or without Hell so they stand out.
I was just stating what came to my mind due to recent viewings that relate to both clown like characters and the pit of eternal damnation.
Comic book Spawn clown is EVIL and unlikeable…..truly a villain built to be hated. Movie Spawn Clown is evil, but funny and a joy to watch actor John Leguizamo bring him to life…….
The clowns everywhere remark makes be think that poor Halo has been suborned and included into the LLC nefarious. Because that’s totally a Sydney line and lines like that are one of her powers.
Evil person. You put the bait out to get me into the Patreon.
=^_^=
Sorry, last panel broke my suspension of disbelief. Maxima uncorked has barely been breaking bad (snerk!) so mere asphalt/concrete should not damage meat wench. I know we like “sticks and stones may break my bones” but Supers break stones. Should have broken stonewench’s hand.
I know I brought it up when Sydney broke concretia’s head and concretia could still talk, but outside of ‘ex machina’, how could the spirit forms still talk? (I’m ignoring physics of concrete larynx speech)
It looks like she did break her wrist, but Henchie is currently focused on her additional lost teeth right now
DaveB Halo could have had Pixel adjust her body (temp) to look like she had fully completed the basic training as her trainers wanted her to. Then done selfies… surprised she hasn’t had Pixel do same to them on a girl’s night… What would we look like if we had super bodies too?
You are confusing Pixelicious (who only has powers in her Were form) with Kronachrome
And, do you want to trust her to have saved your real form first? Or trust that you would know the difference once she’s ‘adjusted’ your body?
Based on what we’ve seen of Krona so far, I think I’d trust her to make a best effort and not to offer changes (or to refuse the request) if she didn’t feel confident that it would be reversible. Note that the aftermath of her ‘save point’ did seem to shake her confidence a bit, so she would want to improve her knowledge above that point before confidence could be restored – by how much, and on what timescale, is not my question to answer.
Having said which, I doubt I’d actually ask for anything significant. (Not cosmetically, at least, although I might try not needing glasses for a bit.) The ‘Super’ look may do it for some, but others prefer something closer to normal Human.
Problem is: accidents happen, and Kronachrome is not perfect
Run it as a simulation? Virtual so that they can pose and take selfies…
Also you know Krona prob has a photoshopped NORMAL version of all the supers that have given her a hard time… her BF would have helped I’m sure.
A fair point. At the end of the day, it’s a question of how confident you would be in her ability to avoid and/or correct said accidents. I’d have faith in her not to deliberately introduce any unwanted changes* and only to offer/agree if she was confident in her ability to avoid unwanted ones, you’re more wary, fair enough.
*Assuming I’d not antagonised her enough to merit deliberate changes. But anyone daft enough to annoy her that much and then invite her to modify their body deserves to become the negative example!
I think it’s ’bout time for Hench to either find job w/ better health benefits or get/copy the power of those w/ regeneration
So when Concretia leaves her stone body, does it remain in place? Like a statue? If so, she could make a good living selling heroic statuary. A trio of Graces, a troop of maenads, a lineup of caryatids.
Maybe some angels. Weeping, of course.
If Sydney manages to turn Concretia away from the dark side after this I would love to see Sydney drag her to Comic-Con so she could cosplay as a real stone angel. She could sneak up behind people and freeze when they turn around.
Henchie shoulda waited a little before doing the sneak attack: Maxi looked genuinely freaked out by what she thought she had done
After this,Hench Wench whistles every time she says “cinnamon.”
Regarding the invotive: there is just something… ‘off‘ about Sydney’s face
Thats the face of, “I cant believe I’m doing this, but he did send me one so…”
I think it’s probably the mouth. There are too many teeth visible in my opinion, and it makes the smile look way too wide.
Well, either too many teeth visible, or the mouth is just slightly too angled wrong.
Yeah, the mouth is a primary focus of what seems to be wrong
the furrowed brow is what throws me off here.
Hench Wench might be more of a threat if she were smarter. (Hell, if she were smart she could have just joined Archon and lounged in semi-god hood.)
But as is, I don’t see her, or this fight, lasting much longer.
Eh, she’ll survive.. she’ll just wish she didn’t.
Remember how (she believes) her power works: if she joined Archon, she would have no powers
Okay, the question remains. Why are the faces on the stone forms made with Concretia’s power angular while the rest of the body isn’t?
could be personal choice.
Was going to ask “Have we seen Cree’s natural face?” but then noticed that RockHenchie has the same angularity of the facial structure whereas Menchie doesn’t (also, Rochie has all her teeth :P )
We have, if not from a clear angle, and what we could see didn’t look as angular as her stone-body’s face. There was some speculation that it’s an ‘inbuilt mask’ effect, hindering identification.
It’s also a nice callback to Max’s own history:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-263-dont-do-it-you-fool/
Also, she’s hitting a broken nose. It’s going to be more sensitive after being broken, even on a super.
i think maxima is going easy on henchwench, cuz so few people have the ability to survive her powers. or she is taking it easy on henchwench hoping she will keep talking and give more info away to max. at least henchwench is not showing wolverine level speed healing, tho may be able to heal completely over time, say a few weeks, compared to being killed if she was taking damage at that normal human levels
easy way for max to end fight with her would be use strength to get good grip on both bodies, then fly at super speed to atlantic ocean where there is no land and is several thousand feet deep. then separate the biological body and stone body.
we don’t have full list of henchwenche’s full power set, but we can guess that she has had them short term and very little experience, so max doing something like that might scare her in major psychological ways. drop stone body in deep dark water at night, and living body miles from any stone or concrete to make new body, and threaten to leave her in water by herself, or just floating on small raft or driftwood
now we don’t know if she has ability to make a portal or teleport. also we don’t know how many abilities she can use at one time. so far it seems like she can use one power or one persons powers at a time. she has limited experience with those abilities, but might be able to use them in ways the original owners can’t, just cuz of new perspective
Ignore the rock body, grab the meat one and fly straight up. HW’s powers other than flight and toughness become irrelevant when she passes out of range of earth. Then, yes, head out to sea at top speed for several minutes. There’s very little chance that HW can fly back faster than Max at top speed, and the team can mop up the remainder.
Of course, the call from Halo is due any moment…
ahem, you are not supposed to mention that option…..heck, grabbing Brut and HW and flying out of breathable atmosphere is the shorthand solution that works allatime. Heck, Superman wouldn’t have died if he had just flown Doomsday out of the atmosphere. Making it permanent by pitching him into the Sun’s gravity well (extra crispy and unable to escape). Newer versions of Doomsday have him flying, but the original didn’t.
Sweet merciful CRAP, this is painful to watch.
Okay, Dave, you got me, I’m now at the $3 tier. Worth it, though.
And now they know that Concretia is involved.
Any second now, Maxi’s gonna hear Sydney say “Maxima! Concretia is…!”
Huh. Concretia can in theory control her ‘main’ body and ‘fake’ body simutaneously…
In theory. However, Concretia’s meat body seems to be both restrained and drugged, while HW is free to use both.
Just to make sure I,ve got the blocking right:
Maxima soul-punches Hench
Hench animates a stone body behind Max
Maxima maneuvers behind the stone body to punch its head off
Hench maneuvers her meat bod behibd Max to grab her from behind
Stone bod turns around and accidentally causes a why are you hitting yourself situation
You missed the part where Rockwench TURNS to yell at Mr Amorphous.
Maxima soul-punches Hench
Hench animates a stone body behind Max
Mr A yells
Rockwench turns to yell at Mr A
Maxima spins behind the stone body to punch its head off
Hench controls her meat bod behind Max to grab her from behind
Stone bod turns back and accidentally causes a why are you hitting yourself situation
thank you
Is the evil clowns in hell a reference to Hazbin Hotel.
Spawn
when referencing something there is no automatic default that your reference has to fall down to whatever the older source of a theme is; otherwise your clowns in hell is going to fall down to some Operas with evil jesters in them.
Like you can reference a super powered adventure story but that doesn’t mean you are automatically referencing the Epic of Gilgamesh.
I could reference Star Trek, without being claimed I am instead referencing Buck Rodgers.
Fairly sure Hazbin didn’t come out prior to 2010
You missed the point entirely.
You can reference something with out having to reference anything that had the same theme before it.
On that note Violator was one character, the Hell in Spawn wasn’t really clown themed or had that many other clowns…in fact I don’t remember any other clown themed characters at all off the top of my head besides Violator. Which on that note Spawn was a comic book from the 1990s; there was plenty of creepy clown stuff including stuff taking place in Hell long before Spawn ever existed.
Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss are clearly not basing their Hell or clown theme on Spawn; in fact given the musical nature of the productions are likely an allusion to the role of the Jester in several operas and dramatic platys as they would tell the tale as a sort of narrator, sing the tragedies, and make light of the despairs of the characters. As well as being tragic and sometimes antagonistic figures themselves in the same operas.
Heck Fizzaroli as a name would fit right in with Rigoletto.
But to put this home,
Spawn first issue: 1992
and just look at this wiki on evil clowns, you have them going back to at least the mid to late 1800s if not more infrequently earlier on. Including in tv and comic books in the 1970s and 1980s.
but I digress as what is oldest isn’t the point
as again the point I was trying to get across is
You can reference something; without it mattering because you aren’t directly referencing it, anything that came before it just because it has some element in common. and I gave examples.
It is like saying someone referencing Star Trek has to be referencing Buck Rodgers instead.
We don’t know what DaveB was referencing or just making a general pop culture reference *demon clowns are pretty common Halloween decorations these days*; but it is pretty weird to imply they have to be referencing the older work just because it is older.
edited out this link by accident when double checking my ranting because of how frustrating it is to make a point and have the next response to it, be the exact opposite of the point. Its like saying, this is dry and someone say, “but this other thing is wet”. It makes no sense as a reply. I was pointing out older things existing doesn’t matter when referencing something younger;
and then you reply, but this thing only goes back to this young date. Duh, obviously, I wasn’t saying it was older than it was, I was saying that doesn’t matter when making a reference. If I were to say reference the Dark Knight you wouldn’t insist I was actually referencing Tim Burton’s Batman just because it was the older movie.
anywho:
link to evil clowns
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_clown
Side Note: the two above are a tad harsher than I intended; was already frustrated by something else before my rotation of checking out the internet.
Should have just typed:
Not the point, re-read what I wrote.
Nope, didn’t feel you were being harsh
Was just saying, that Spawn was just as likely a reference, and… forgetting that just because a character could only have knowledge of things up to the time they are in, doesn’t mean the author has to as well (mostly saying, that no matter what evil clown-based knowledge DaveB has, Henchie could not know about, nor be able to reference, Hazbin Hotel)
As for ‘Hazbin Hotel’, only personal knowledge of it’s existence has been through various hentai images, and not even sure if there were any clowns shown in them
I can see that; that said even in like 2010 when this story takes place evil clowns were a pretty common trope already in Halloween stores and spook episodes of cartoons. But then again a comic doesn’t have to be held by a specific time period regardless when it takes place; just look at all the series that make up new shows or politicians. Or became more ambiguous on how much time passed like Marvel which over time stopped referencing real world event in-universe after a few decades of being on the shelves and things in comic just looked like whenever the comic was written and referenced modern things.
on the last thing you wrote…hentai…online porn ruins a lot of things for people if it is their first exposure to the franchise or other characters, Hachishakusama, Slenderman, Sonic the Hedgehog, Pokémon, Digimon, ect…
Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss are for adults but they aren’t porn; and are actually really well made, animation is astonishing; especially for Helluva Boss considering its only youtube, great voice actors (as in big name ones as well); and you can tell real heart and effort is going into it. Heck the sheer number of people online just blown away by Helluva Boss episode 2 *there is a pilot and two official episodes for the season right now*; speaks volumes; the first episode is funny and expands from the pilot in a more cohesive manner but episode two just strikes out as this bigger production.
Oh my god! I can’t stop laughing! THAT is a great fight between two powerful, AND skilled opponents. I mean Maxima is out-thinking Henchwench at every turn, but she is actually trying very well and using techniques that would work on almost everyone else. Well, except for breaking teamwork and embracing the ‘ALL THE POWHAR IS NOW MINE’ meme.
Still that punched my soul out and I got pulled to hell would be a great WTF moment, if Henchwench was actually skilled at sneak attacks. Probably would have worked better with just raising her head enough to target an uppercut to Maxima’s groin or boobs. Or eye-gouge.
“Yeah, the stony body is kinda cool, but it can’t hurt me, and I can just beat on your meat body anyway.”
Hehe, beat on your meat…
Well you know what the Ramones say!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GudM-IjhvSo