Grrl Power #913 – The purge
Yes, the clean spot was in an adjacent room.
Honestly I think this page is grosser than the previous one. Especially the mid-sentence burps, and the non-pictured (you’re welcome) strings of gorgy drool that follow them.
So yeah, as I predicted, there were some differing opinions on Cora’s handling of the situation. Honestly I just thought it was funny, both the extreme overkill and Sydney sitting there covered in human jam with one eye twitching. This comic isn’t Judge Dredd, but it’s not My Little Pony either. I guess it’s closer to the latter really, but eh, sometimes bad guys explode.
For those of you wondering, Sydney was not allowed to inject herself with a syringe of Fuggedaboutit (that’s the trademarked drug name) that was covered in viscera.
To answer Sydney’s question, I can tell you that she’s mostly throwing up due to stress. Despite playing it surprisingly cool, she was actually really scared there, especially after the drugs and that asshole pointing a gun at her face. The gore storm put her over the top, but she probably would have eventually panic barfed even without that.
Check the vote incentive to see Sydney not naked. And then there’s the Patreon version.
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Given that the guy’s viserca were probably shredded, one imagines that the room has a rather pungent smell, which probably isn’t helping Sidney’s problem.
Viscera, not viserca. Viserca would be silly.
So is that Cora or you the author apologising in the last panel, DaveB?
Dave’s not sorry. It’s the author’s job to torture the characters.
What is wrong with Cora? Well, She was Raised offworld in an advanced alien culture that seems to have a more casual approach to extreme self defense. (Gore soaked allyway and a melted femur: Littering)
And she has access to technology that makes slap-chopping someone incredibly easy.
To be fair, Sydney DID say in her message that killing the hooded guys was OK, and she’s seen Cora do similar stuff before. She just wasn’t in the splash zone before.
The aliens might love Earth porn (according to Cora), but it seems like alien horror flicks are far superior to ours.
I’m guessing the aliens look on human horror flicks like some sort of light comedy.
Or hate crime
why? actual alien races aren’t in them and every alien race is an alien race to every other alien race, humans aren’t some special “not aliens” to anyone else. So they are still imagining fictional species and monsters. Not like an actual Yuatja is going to be watching The Predator and being as offended or more so than the fans at the depiction.
Okay, probably not hate crime, slander? (anti-)propaganda?
Just look at the reaction to certain local movies that portray various groups in a negative or biased way
Still not, because (alien) means anything not from here.
All of those billions of cultures while joined via trade and a galaxy police federation (Xevoarchy) are all distinct separate cultures not a singular identity. So movies about alien invaders or acid blooded space monster or big game hunters who hunt people; don’t reflect any actual specific culture out there. and given what we’ve seen in this setting some may laugh anyway at the behavior and think it may reflect one species or another; but they won’t all be offended. Heck look how Cora talks about Alari, the Alari are a distinct species and a distinct culture. It stands to reason each alien world is going to have one or more of its own distinct self governments, cultures, and identity.
one reason why the Twilight Council thing over simplified it, the Twilight Council alien rep wasn’t representing all alien species everywhere but a bottle neck to Earth, a tourist agency that got to filter who came, or else an ambassador for those tourists to make watch Earth’s development on behalf of the Xevoarchy (Federation, Empire, ect…), but the take away is, every alien species is an alien species to each other as much as they are to humans on Earth. You can’t really just group them all together like you could vampires, werewolves, or a specific real ethnicity to be offended by something clearly coded to represent them unfavorably.
Also there actually are invaders and slavers and such out there in this setting so some species may see the fictional aliens as due caution about the universe. Heck wouldn’t be surprised if the “Ultimate Challenge” trope did show up on Earth as some big game hunter targeting supers (has happened in other comics).
“movies about alien invaders or acid blooded space monster or big game hunters who hunt people; don’t reflect any actual specific culture out there – Rhuen
… As far as we know.
Yes, it would be a long-shot coincidence if a fictional creature designed by a film-maker on Earth happened to resemble a People that actually exists out there. It’s another long shot for the real ones ever to find out about the fictional ones, even before we ask how they react. But with who-knows-how-many Peoples in the galaxy, and with all the creatures that have been created in fiction over the years, there are a lot of chances to hit those long odds.
Oh definitely a hate crime. Those poor xenomorphs were on their own planet, mindin’ their own business, when the marines came in to try to kill them all. :)
Also, given the environment in which she was raised, she probably has a different balance on the ‘what looks incredibly disturbing to see explode’ than Sydney and the rest of us.
I mean, she’s not been steeped in the “this is what your insides look like” like the rest of us have been. For her, the insides of people have a great deal of variety, and while she might have some more association with the insides of humans because she knows she’s one of them, it’s not *that* much worse for her.
That said, I’d say it’s still pretty disturbing for her to be that cavalier about it.
to be fair the Fracture station cop did ask she not be so extreme against low level thugs, and was only getting away with it because she had saved Fracture station on multiple occasions. So more lenient but not a hallpass.
Twice. Which isn’t typically refered to as “multiple” even if it is accurate. And the second time might not have been advertised for whatever reasons, since the cop that said she’d saved the station didn’t seem to be aware of more than one occurence.
I’m not disagreeing with you so much as nitpicking for some silly reason. Probably boredom.
Rhuen is technically correct to describe twice as mulitple.
And as we all know, technically correct is the best kind of correct.
I have to say…
It sounds like Sidney is ready for round 2 of Gak.
Oops indeed. Looks like Cora should have set her rounds to “sanitize” instead of “maximum psychological impact”.
Oh it could have been worse, so much worse, like a de-boner weapon, organ harvester nano-bots, a sped up version of Predator’s razor net gun, self propagating acid pellets melting him from the inside out in agonizing strips, or a simple heat expansion round to cook him from the inside out.
>de-boner weapon
I wouldn’t be surprised if the boss had trouble getting it up to begin with. :P
Missing scene:
Concretia: Oh, my go-
*Cora fires another round into her body, shatters*
Concretia (forming new body): Would you mind not do-
*Cora fires another round, shatters*
Concretia (forming yet another new body): For Chrissakes, stop, I surrender!
Cora (pointing gun at Concretia): You’re the geokinetic, right?
Concretia: Yes, but I was under duress, I don’t want to fight!
Cora: Hmph, fine. Let Halo go and I’ll play nice.
Concretia: Um, yeah, I let her go about 5 minutes ago. She’s been barfing in the other room this whole time.
Right.
HOW ON EARTH is Concretia not in some kind of alien restraints, but standing casually next to Cora?
Because:
1) It wouldnt work anyway. All that can be restrained is her physical body, which is something she can just slip out of and go into another one of.
2) I have to assume since there’s not a fight going on between Cora and Concretia that Sydney almost definitely let Cora know that Concretia was not a willing participant. Made more evident by the hole in the floor which released Sydney’s orbs.
Could Concretia just shed the outside 1mm of her along with all the grime?
That would make Sydney extremely jealous of her.
Implies a level of extreme fine control she might not have.
Gloopy bits of flesh would probably be clingy and drip right back on her. Sometimes, when you get that messy, just getting a new body is the only way to go. Karmically if nothing else.
just imaging a Ghost in the Shell moment of being just covered in gore and switching to another body till your other one can go through a deep clean and sterilization.
When you finally evolve from Sidewalk Woman to Lady Bloodstone, but decide red isn’t your color and take a bath to devolve
I’m honestly surprised no one has imagined Frix contacting Sydney through her glasses, detecting she’s been hurling, and exclaiming “Honestly–I was using PROTECTION!” This is the perfect opportunity for her to hide morning sickness with a plausible explanation. And now I’m imagining little Sydney/Frix hybrid critters, cuter than cute, with precocious attitudes.
https://wp-cpr.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/08/14499471080_f6940d74f4_o.jpg?resize=1032,688
a little visual aid.
Daaaawwwwwww. Lookit those eyes!
And at least one of them with a need to extremely overreact to things.
Honestly I thought the overkill was pretty awesome too. But clearly that would traumatize just about anybody! Surely Max will get her to a therapist!
Sydney will need a therapist and her therapist will need a therapist who will need a therapist.
That said? The one I TRULY pity is the poor construction guy who comes in after a day off and find the mess. (Cora might clean up after herself, she might not. Especially if she is focused on protecting Sydney and making sure Concretia is not going anywhere.)
Almost as bad as the utility guys who open a manhole to find an extra crispy would-be copper thief has cut into a power line instead of a phone line and then been left in said manhole for a while since no one reported him/her missing.
I doubt something like that would shock Dr. Frost.
As for the mess, the building will likely all be surrounded by Police — Crime Scene — Do Not Enter — Police tape. The New York City coroner would still be looking around to make sure that they got all of him and did not miss any bits of him. Archon will likely be exercising jurisdiction over the rescuer/litterer (Cora) and the geomorph, but the New York City police will be dealing with the non-powered gang members. The construction company will be one of the first parties that the police will contact (after the coroner) to tell them that their building contains a crime scene and the cops will need some time to investigate it.
Two days later:
Lead Detective: Okay, the place is all yours again. We are done here.
Construction Boss: This place is all torn up! Do you know how much time and money this will cost?! How many extra people I will have to bring in? How far this will push us behind schedule?
Arriana: I would like to offer you an alternative. In exchange for dropping outstanding charges against her, Concretia here will provide her skills to help repair the building.
Construction Fore: Oh, and what can this waling rock pile do, other than eat up my concrete making new bodies for herself?
[ Concretia stretches out her hand and the Sydney’s chair flows back into the floor, leaving only minor imperfections in the surface. She walks over to a column, picking up loose fragments of concrete from the floor as she goes. When she gets to the pillar, she fits the pieces into the holes in the column and smooths them out. ] That is what I can do. By the way, there is some sort of void inside this column over here. It’s not as strong as the others because of it.
Construction Boss: [ Lower jaw is hanging against his chest ]
[Construction Foreman, to Concretia]
So… Want a job, lady?
Sorry Tasked out looking for Jimmy Hoffa and buried treasure.
Which was my plan until they grabbed my body.
[Concreta to Construction Foreman]
Is your shop non-Union, cause… It is; good! Not about my pay…
Get your insurance agent, their adjuster, and someone from the materials lab they use over here. I want 3/4 the amount your company will save when their post-construction liability go to zero.
At which point, the construction foreman, having worked out that he AND his crew just became superfluous, says: “Never mind…”
I can see some lobbyists getting legislation passed to discriminate against supers using murky language and go-around tactics, like prohibiting the use of specific abilities to endanger the available workforce for specific occupations. Which would then be a precedence for future less go around discrimination via insurance and employee safety excuses based on misunderstandings of how powers worked through the lawmakers.
Guild protection is nothing new. They would write it, though, as a way to enforce standard materials use and construction methods, for safety reasons.
Which would be as stupid as forced metahuman registration. Those with the powers to pay the bills would happily go to another country that doesn’t pull that bullshit and make bank there. -1 metahuman for Beauracristan, +1 metahuman for Galtyn.
Or at least the unchecked use of abilities in safety-critical applications. Concretia may be allowed to use her Power to shape the building’s structure, but it would still need to pass the same inspections as a conventionally-built structure – inspection by a Baseline Human safety engineer, using ‘normal’ instruments. And if there’s any difference in appearance between Power-forming and conventional methods, the less familiar structure would take longer to inspect as they’d have to check every unfamiliar detail. The engineer signing off on the safety of the building isn’t allowed to take Concretia’s word for it that she’s extruded the load-bearing structures correctly by eyeball estimate and pseudo-tactile feedback alone.
Which would also make it illegal to remove anything from the crime scene, including the stasis pod. Both before and of course after the police arrive. Putting the final cherry on top of the “asking Sydney to go ‘hide’ alien tech in a city of 8 million people is stupid” fridge logic.
Well… except Sydney’s… sort of a cop now. Or at least a cop-in-training, and Archon would have jurisdiction over this since supers and other extra-normal threats were involved. Archon would likely be the group who investigate this crime scene, not the NYPD. If it came down to a jurisdiction battle between agencies.
Is anyone else picturing Dabbler’s “Mrs. Clean with make-up effects” spell? How well does Sydney gussy up?
If the entrails pile was part of the Supervillainous LLC, which power did Hench Wench just lose?
Unmitigated arrogance.
Well losing that would likely make her more willing to surrender.
So, as funny as this is, there are some important questions.
1. Where are the other two minions?
2. How is Concretia’s real body? Any plans to recover/rescue it?
3. Is Sydney still being affected by the truth serum? And/or did she take the antidote/memory loss drug?
Likely answers:
1. Elsewhere in the room, having been ‘persuaded’ to surrender and come quietly.
2a. Still wherever ‘Daddy Sauce’ was keeping it, as there doesn’t appear to have been any communication from the goons to warn the keepers to move her.
2b. Probably not at the moment, probably yes once they’ve had a chance to sit down and make the plans.
3a. Probably not, judging by the mention of a “counteragent” and the fact that she’s talking in coherent sentences rather than torrent-of-consciousness.
3b. The second syringe in the box was a memory wiper rather than an antidote, and we have Word of DaveB that Sydney was not dosed with that. Talk of a “counteragent” implies that she was brought down from the truth serum as opposed to coming down naturally, but we don’t know whether the counteragent was supplied by one of the goons or by Cora.
In the last panel Concretia and Cora illustrate an interesting divide. Many, if not most of us, like Connie, have fantasized about doing violence to someone we felt deserved it but we rarely ever actually go there. Cora on the other hand, goes there and doesn’t anticipate the negative reactions of others to her overkill response.
Human society is an extreme outlier from galactic society. Use of force, up to and including killing, is just another way of solving problems out there.
Regulating the use of violence is a necessary part of civilization. And from what we’ve heard, the Xevoarchy represents not only civilization, but bureaucracy.
I’m certain there’s more lawless areas in the galaxy, but human civilization being an outlier doesn’t seem plausible. Especially given that human have had their own issues with violence which took some work to overcome.
Sydney does have a history of adrenaline crash fear vomit.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-46-yoga-hwarf/
I understand the new body from another room, but where did she get the new clothing? Is that concrete too?
The vest and pants do appear to be something she “Brings along” with her ghost, and is left behind on bodies she leaves behind when she abandons one, so presumably she make them subconsciously.
Also, she appears to take on the painting/coloration of whatever she controls as well (Notice how in the earlier fight, her replacement body took on the painted line from the parking lot as part of its appearance here: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-216-50-caliber-headache/
I understand that the coloration of her golums is based on whatever coloration it already had when she took control of it. So black asphalt with a yellow dividing line for the parking spaces came along for the ride.
One scene I don’t watch anymore and just fast forward through now is the fat guy eating in the restaurant in Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life. The projectile vomiting all over everything and everybody, and his abdomen exploding when he eats too much adding to the disgusting mess, just isn’t something I want to watch whenever I view the movie again.
Concretia speaks for all of us.
No, only most, not all
Wait, which part is she speaking for all?
It’s not my little pony?
Clearly you need to read Fallout Equestria.
Maxima: Situation report
Cora: Enemy neutralized, Scoville saved.
Sydney: She Fist of the North Starred a guy.
Omae Wa Mou Shindeiru. Nani?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkmrJLKEa98
Did that just explode the one guy, or did it get all three?
If it had a big enough AoE to tag the minions it would also have tagged Sydney. The minions should be fine…well, physically, anyway… assuming they were smart enough to surrender after seeing their boss get pureed in front of them…
Tactically, the only really good reason for doing something that messily and with delayed effect is to impress the survivors. In the case of the comic it is done for dramatic effect but if the bad guy had also been particularly smart as well as being a total dick he might have been packing an F@(%-you bomb.
I still think the knife to teeth is worse, but that’s just me.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-210-dental-trauma-fu-or-technically-its-non-lethal/
“How to make taking a sliver under the nail right up to the joint seem preferable in one easy step.”
Today Cora learns that collateral damage can sometimes be psychological damage.
Same.
Cora’s line in panel 5: she’s a badass, but she’s a *caring* badass.
How are Cora’s enemies supposed to learn to avoid her if they all disappear on the first encounter? You just know Deus would have handled this differently.
See Video on PanGalacticInstagram #CoraAtWork #ThisCouldBeYou
Cora has no enemies.
Well, not any more that are counted amongst the living…
They’re not – she wouldn’t want to scare them away. Who is supposed to test her cool weapons on then?
“A combination of factors if ‘YARP’ if I’m honest.” That ‘yarp’ there made it for me. Like it was “For the greater Good” lol.
Yarp
Back when Cruise and Pitt came out with Interview with a Vampire; I was playing a Vampire: The Masquerade RPG campaign weekly. Our Storyteller was excited about it and we all went to the theatre together to watch it. About the time Louis makes his first kill on that girl and the blood pool just keeps on widening, our storyteller lost it. Somehow, she had a very romantic idea of a somewhat bloodless vampire world…..I just thought Louis was a sloppy eater.
I don’t remember who the comedian was but I remember a bit about how sloppy vampires are in movies and how of course they are killing like five people a night; if you drank a Pepsi by shaking it up first and spraying yourself in the face you’d still be thirsty and wasting a whole twelve pack of cans before you felt like you’d drank anything.
Heh, I was a somewhat similar experience. I took a new girlfriend to see Carpenter’s Vampires. The previews I’d seen made it appear to be “jump out and go boo” plus vampire sexiness sort of movie*, which can make for a pretty decent date movie. We left after the preacher got vampire mind controlled and put his shotgun pistol under his chin and pulled the trigger.
On hindsight I probably should have known better, given Carpenter’s love of body horror and gore.
.
* The preview I’d seen had two short clips: One with a vampire ‘hiding’ on the ceiling of a room, the next with a girl on a bed apparently being given cunnilingus to her great pleasure.
poor Sydney … well at least she got her orbs back… and I do wonder, how they are going to get concretia’s body back?
A weird side-effect of the pre-explosion cutaway (a decision I’m sure we all greatly appreciate) is that I wasn’t clear about the fate of the other two villain dudes.
Even now the real confirmation we have that they’re dead is just that we’re…out of initiative order, I guess you could call it.
Hopefully this is enough for all those calling her a Mary Sue to cease their vomit. Thankfully (for Cora mainly) she didn’t have any of her namesake meals recently. Dr. Frost is going to need therapy after this therapy if Sydney’s feeling descriptive.
I don’t get it. Use of lethal force – unfortunate, but justifiable in this case.
Best kind of lethal force to use? Limits suffering and collateral damage. Both marginal. The guy did get some pain from what he thought was a shoulder wound, for at least a couple of seconds. And the floor of the parking structure will need repairs. But a lethal round was used on somebody standing between four other people and the four other people are okay? That’s what we call a success.
So it was messy. That’s an aesthetic consideration. Some overtime for the Medical Examiners, but I’m sure they’ll be enthusiastically volunteering for the assignment, because they’ll be intensely interested in the investigation into just what exactly Salsa Man did get killed by.
There will be no MEs. This op is loaded with top secret information, about Scoville, about Concretia, about Cora, and about the organization that started the whole fight downtown. There is no need for anyone outside that room to know.
That was a war scene in a superpowered battle. Supers were present at every second of the encounter; supers started it, and supers ended it.
The site will be cleaned up, the hoods will be disappeared and debriefed, and what happened there will not be in any news media whatsoever. There is literally no one who knows what happened, in whose interest it would be to discuss or to publicize.
Messy can be important. Let’s imagine that Salsa Man had friends in high places, so a prosecutor can be found who attempts to bring this to trial (and everyone plays along). Cora claims self-defense ( which includes the defense of others, https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/does-self-defense-apply-defend-someone-else.html ) which is ultimately decided on by a jury. Many (most?) jurisdictions’ laws that surround self-defense include an element of ‘no prior aggression or intent’. Meaning that if you arm yourself with an illegal combat knife and go skulk around in dark alleyways until you are attacked, its going to be a hard sell to get the jury to believe that the giant mess you made wasn’t intentional. In Cora’s case, a simple shot between the eyes would have killed the guy just as dead, but she was waltzing around with Ghoulish-Overkill rounds loaded up. Was she looking for trouble? Or perhaps Salsa Man’s prosecutor friend would attempt the simpler argument that she did not respond with proportionate force? Messy leaves vulnerabilities in her legal defense, where one (or three) clean, relatively bloodless headshots would definitely be less exposure.
Now, what if Cora had brought a Varon-T disruptor equivalent? Not at all messy, still removes Salsa Guy with a single shot, but absolutely far more cruel. No horrible aftermath to show a jury pictures of, versus insta-shred ammo.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Varon-T_disruptor
Ho very like the Federation to outlaw a weapon simply because it causes a few seconds of pain before it kills. Every phaser has a “man-sized hole*” setting that is just as good at killing, and you’d never be able to question anyone to learn if it was painful to those killed or not…
.
* This is what my friends and I called the setting where the person hit by the phaser just disappears. Thus the phaser caused a man-sized hole to appear where they had been standing. It was often seen in TOS, but I think this effect was done away with in later spin-offs.
Trek phasers still have a “no evidence” setting. So you’re saying they used to have a “no evidence, but give the victim time to scream” setting?
“Relatively slow and excruciating” sucks pretty hard, but if it’s over in a few seconds I’d take it any day over death by COVID, which takes a full day of agony after being intubated.
Standard Federation phasers do not have that setting, but other weapons in Star Trek do. A Veron-T Disruptor was one described in some detail in Star Trek the Next Generation. Klingon weapons do the same on occasion, because, well, Klingons are Klingon.
Take a hostage on Q’onos. Please! I double dog dare you!
They don’t? Sure as heck could have fooled me!
From TOS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VsRvLpQpFc&t=15
From TOS, with the ship’s phaser array: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9R2WzBB6fg&t=23
From TNG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPFp5tAlIB8&t=2:55
From Movies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_a2GN0Ix4o&t=20
After a bit of hunting, here’s an example of the effects of the Varon-T disruptor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPW2GPe_uIQ&t=40
I am just reminded of the one weapon on Star Gate SG-1 that annoyed me so much, the Zats, these weapons killed with one shot, leaving no outward damage to the body, but the second shot erased the body. Not burned it away or anything else, just poof gone like a magic trick. Which they did sometimes to by time so another patrol wouldn’t find the bodies.
this weapon annoyed me because most later weapons and weapons introduced at the same time were stricter on obeying the laws of physics *sometimes too much making the Ancients look a lot less advanced than was claimed* but I digress; the Zats as a result stood out as this way more advanced tech than anything else. The Goa’uld though didn’t invent anything but found or stole all their tech so it was a riddle as to where they got those from to begin with.
The issue it that she didn’t use the lethal force to stop him, which would have been justified. He was killed after he had already stood down, with the immediate threat handled. Had the shoulder-hit failed to disarm him, the explosion would have come too late to stop him from shooting Sydney.
Self-defence justifies using lethal force to defend yourself, not using lethal force in whatever way tickles your fancy.
When the fuck did he ‘stand down’?
When he talked to Cora.
Anyone know where I can get rounds like that? It would FUN to use on the range!
You could ask CERN to make you something like that. They have some amounts of anti-matter, which they could probably incorporate into ammunition, with some very fancy containment technology. It would be a tad expensive though (as in the most expensive material made on Earth, not even including the R&D costs needed to ensure that the bullets did not explode just by being around matter).
Cora probably bought hers at Fracture. So see how much Ray Cosmos would charge you for a round trip there. And then see if US customs would allow those rounds to be imported.
What am I saying, it is America. They would probably just be waved through!
They only have a few milligrams, it takes time and work, just to make that!
A milligram of antimatter still gives 40 tons of TNT-equivalent.
Anti-matter just gives a radioactive explosion. What happened to Daddy wasn’t an explosion, he got violently sliced into pieces. I’ve been thinking force-field-blender, others theorized monofilament wire.
I think maybe the LLC that’s powering HenchWench dissolved at the same time as Salsa Man.
And just as Salsa Man quickly settled out of solution, the dissolution of the LLC may be quickly getting settled as well.
Salsa Man didn’t seem like the type who’d be content to take anyone else’s orders. So if he were in an organization he’d probably be at the head of it. And he seemed to be in charge of Concretia, including making some commands that wouldn’t be authorized by any job within and relating to the operation of the LLC, so he wasn’t exactly acting like middle management. A middle manager would get his butt fired with the “thank you for fixing me daddy” crap.
So if he was in charge of Concretia, it seems likely that he’d probably have been in charge of the other supers on the scene too.
This could leave HenchWench the victim of a sudden power failure.
Are you forgetting that it was Henchie who formed the L.L.C. herself?
Also, she is showing control over her geokinetic abilities that Cree has not shown nor even hinted at being capable of
RE: The LLC. Not necessarily. Her exact words were “I had these guys incorporate into an LLC before contracting me …” – this could mean she drew up the papers herself, or simply made recommendations to the group for the paperwork they should have someone draft. Plenty of law firms have done the filings to create LLCs for their clients, without having any interest at all (let alone ownership/control) in the resulting entity.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-891-enter-the-wench-not-that-way-pervs/
Sudden Power Failure can be fatal in a super battle.
Hopefully this will involve a Wile E. Coyote moment.
Let’s hope Max doesn’t have to deal with the aftermath of a villain suddenly losing the ability to take a super punch.
I agree that ‘Daddy Salsa’ would probably have made sure he was in charge of the Super component, but I don’t think the LLC structure that powers HW will have dissolved with him.
As I understand it, HW’s Power ‘looks’ at the top tier of her employer’s organisational structure, and copies Powers accordingly. In order to have multiple Powers, multiple people need to be equal at the top; by implication from the Powers used, one of those is Concretia. In order for ‘Daddy’ to be giving one of the Powered members of the LLC orders, without being formally a higher tier and having HW’s Power try to read from him, the LLC would have to be a separate entity subcontracted by his organisation. This implies that the LLC survives being removed from that larger organisation, and must be dissolved separately.
So, can anybody give any good reasons not to arrest Cora for murder or atleast declare her persona non grata? I get it that she has special status as an alien but there are laws about vigilantes, as Maxima so kindly pointed out.
How is she a vigilante when she is working with Archon! Even if it is a temporary situation
She was working alongside a military police agency and just rescued a government asset.
She has also helped obtain a new potential asset who may have information about a previously unknown domestic aggressor.
Its not like she dragged the guy outside and slowly peeled his flesh off while laughing, she took out a target, had that been a vaporizing weapon or a head shot people wouldn’t be reacting so harshly.
A threat had illegally detained an American citizen who is a federal agent, was forcing them against their will to disclose government secrets such as the goings on inside a military organization, and was at the time trying to murder said federal agent. lethal force was justified. Even if she did use a rather nasty looking method.
She got the job done. We may also have two other goons contained for questioning as well.
The guy had a gun pointed at Sydney and had declared his intent to kill her. That allows ANYBODY to act in her defence, and lethal force would be justified. Thus it is not murder.
Persona non grata is an action used against diplomats, who have diplomatic immunity, so that is not applicable in this situation, as Cora is not an official diplomat, so could be arrested (were such warranted, which it is not).
Incidentally she is not an alien, Cora is human. Further she is not even an ‘illegal alien’, as she is there with the blessings of Archon.
Finally there are no laws against being a vigilante. It is just that many of the things that vigilantes do (for instance hanging someone they decide is guilty of some offence) are crimes (murder, for that example, albeit that Cora has a good defence against such a charge).
Something I forgot to mention in a scatterbrained post above concerning self-defense – if Chunky Salsa Man had a prosecutor friend with enough mojo to attempt to bring a case against Cora (bypassing Archon), they’d still need evidence. The only thing they’ve got here is eyewitness testimony – Sydney (might be inadmissible due to drugging) and presumably Concretia, versus the remaining hooded goons. I would guess that’s going to be a tough sell to the jury.
Actually, Cora is an alien, seeing how she was not born on Dirt
She may be from hyu-mon stock, but she is not a native Dirtian
Incorrect. “Alien” refers to heritage. As an example think about the X-files, where there was a conspiracy to make hybrids of mixed human and alien origin. They were/would be born on Earth, yet they would be part human and part alien.
Rather Cora is an ‘off-worlder’. A sci-fi term coined to describe someone not born on a planet in question (in this case Earth).
Admittedly ‘alien’ is often used synonymously with ‘something not of terrestrial origin’. However Cora IS of Terrestrial origin, by decent. Thus weakening the justification of using ‘alien’, and why I contest it.
Should we actually discover aliens, these distinctions would become important. Especially if there is any chance of visually mistaking one for another (such as with human/alien hybrids or due to how common human-like forms are in the galaxy, as in this comic).
Cora’s only about two-thirds human, according to her. Regardless, ‘alien’ is also “a person who is not a citizen or national of a given country”. I think that meaning probably precedes the one referring to other planets.
Is someone going to be unhappy that Boss Tartare is dead? Absolutely. Max will have several severe things to say to Cora.
Is that going to result in legal issues? Absolutely not. There is literally no one involved for whom publication and examination of the super vs spy event would be a good thing. That site will be cleaned up, while personnel are probably kept off site due to the hazards caused by a super fight, and the hoods debriefed and disappeared.
After that, it’s highly classified need-to-know, since it includes information about Halo’s weaknesses, Concretia’s identity, Cora’s capabilities, the secret society’s makeup, and so on.
Super easy, barely an inconvenience:
You don’t arrest someone for murder when they acted only to prevent a crime. As I said in the comments of the last comic:
Cora isn’t a cop, but what I said applies to anyone acting to prevent a murder. A non-cop might be arrested, or they might just be taken in for questioning without an actual arrest ever occurring. After the potential victim (Sydney) and the others on the scene corroborate Cora’s story she’d be let go and no DA would ever try to make a case against her.
Can you give any good reasons to arrest and/or do whatever “at least declare her persona non grata” is supposed to accomplish?
Archon doesn’t know what we know – from the outside it looks like justified self-defense. He was about to shoot Sydney, so Cora shot him first. It would be extraordinarily difficult to prove or even find out that she used the lethal force in a way that wasn’t self-defence, especially given that all witnesses were unreliable(Sydney was drugged, Concretia isn’t going to throw her avenger under the bus, the goons were his partners in crime).
And since Cora is a unique asset, they’re not going to look too closely to begin with.
Okay, first things first. We do not know the Archon and Cora relations, but in comic 866 Sydney asks Cora if she is “on the team” and the answer is no and she has promised not to shoot anyone. In any case the violence is way out of proportion to the threat. But if she is answerable to Archon in any way, then she admitted to ignoring Maximas “suggestion” to use non lethal force.
Second, as we see in the comic, Cora hits the man in the shoulder and he drops the weapon. As such there is no longer a clear and present threat to Sydney and any FURTHER violence is not justifiable under self defence. I do agree that there was justifiable reason for violence at the beginning.
Third, there is evidence, as Sydney is wearing her glasses, presumably recording video.
Fourth, persona non grata can be applied to anybody, not just diplomats, to bar that person from entering the country or to deport him from the country.
Something I mentioned elsewhere, but it helps to illustrate how opinion-based a lot of this discussion is. Particularly peoples’ differing interpretations due to the messiness of the ammo that Cora is using. Imagine she used one of these instead – https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Varon-T_disruptor – it still takes 3-5 seconds for the guy to die, it’s just as irrevocable once the trigger has been pulled, his final moments are screaming agony instead of the relatively painless-but-horribly-messy death from Cora’s ammo, and there is no mess to clean up afterwards. It is easy to imagine that this would change opinions/interpretations of Cora’s action.
I don’t think the messiness matters, at least not to me. Dead is dead. Either the killing was justified or not.
Painful would be an entirely separate qualifier.
Well here you’re just simply wrong. The threat was murdering Sydney. Made verbally, and then followed up by pulling out a handgun and pointing it at Sydney’s face. At that point any amount violence is warranted to prevent that felony from occurring. What Cora did was very much in proportion to the threat.
If your ribs are feeling sore Sydney, you are still alive.
His ribs are feeling separated.
Before anyone leaves this area they should probably remember that Sydney was leaving a stasis pod there and probably just take it back with them once this is cleared up instead of leaving it there for the cleaners or local authorities to stumble over.
This is no longer a secure location.
My best guess is that the stasis pod has unaccountably vanished.
It’s almost mandatory.
Unless Dave has something else funny to do.
This is a crime scene. Removing anything from the scene before or after the cops arrive would be a crime. And that includes the stasis pod.
But the cops are already there.
In a sense.
Sydney is a federal agent, this is already a federal matter. Probably need some higher ups involved, but Arc Light and Arc Dark will be the ones dealing with the “survivors”, and Sydney will be reporting the details to Maxima, who will report them to Fauk, and that’s pretty much it on that end.
the scene isn’t a murder scene or anything so no investigation needed. Just some prisoners to take away to interrogate and someone to come in and clean the site up.
A man died, there needs to be an investigation to determine that it wasn’t a murder or that other crimes were not committed. And the NYPD is probably not going to be very happy if Archon tries to wave them off.
Archon has claimed jurisdiction over supers, but cowl-guy and his henchmen do not appear to be (or have been, as the case may be) supers. If Archon tries to make it their sole business just because Concretia was present and being coerced into criminal acts this may be an over reach of their mandate.
Fairly sure Archon’s wheelhouse is Atypical Threats, not just Supers
A-typical threats.
Not that it matters, Concretia isn’t the X-factor that places this under Archon’s jurisdiction. Sydney is.
Sydney is a government agent as Archon is a government agency. So a government agent, who has access to sensitive information was abducted, detained, and questioned by persons unknown.
The immediate threat was removed by an Archon asset *temporary* but still an asset. So given all this the situation needs to be dealt with and every person involved questioned by Archon its self.
Same if someone abducted a CIA agent and questioned them, it wouldn’t be the local PD doing the follow up investigation, it would be the CIA. Now the perp may be handed over to local authorities if the situation calls for it; however should it not it will handled by federal agents.
Based on ARCHON’s charter, they’d have jurisdiction since it involved supers (and an attack on a member of ARCHON, who was the target). NYPD would probably be fine with not having to be involved in this, as per this page (see last panel):
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-367-collar-commandeering/
I fear that Maxima may have killed hench lass now that she lost most of her powerset and was expecting something tougher in her hit…
Well, if you think about why we value life, it makes sense that Non-Terrestrials in a large conglomeration of worlds would value life less.
We only have Earth; life is finite, it was only recently that our population reached one billion (7 billion in such a short time); (as far as we knew) if Earth falls no more us. But, in the wider Universe life is common. So many people that they had to build Dyson Spheres! If a planet blows up (killing billions), terraform a new one. What’s a few lives really worth? Nothing really, even the Altair culture still survives on colony worlds. Kinda sad to lose the homeworld, but hey, they live on.
In a small civilization, Women would be the most to society ‘valuable’ because they give birth. One woman could produce an average of 10-12 children. Making their production of new life much more limited. Men by comparison are less ‘valuable’ to society because one man could impregnate dozens of women. Hence the old phrase “women and children first”, they are logically more valuable.
Just realized that I am rambling again. Stopping here.
I’m not sure which part I find more amusing….
….Sydney continuing a conversation while vomiting, or just that last speech bubble by itself…