Grrl Power #915 – Queue the lengthy exit interview scene
The extended fight scene that took place while Brüt made his calls did involve some attempts at tickling. Is Henchwench super crazy ticklish? I’d like to think so.
This fight has been going on for a while. Brüt didn’t fare well against the Mestu Shoryu [Interrupted] because even though Max didn’t finish it, he still flew like thirty stories straight up. Given his general resistance to kinetic attacks, that wouldn’t normally be a problem for him, but he didn’t land well. Maybe Mr. Amorphous slapped his feet out from under him just as he was coming down?
I’ve mentioned it before, but Maxima doesn’t generally like gender specific slurs. Well, slurs that are gender specific to women. That said, sometimes you just have to call a bitch a bitch. Someone who bites your ear during a fight? Yeah, I’m looking at you, Tyson. I’m not saying I wouldn’t resort to some bitch-ass tactics if Evander Holyfield was systematically converting my skull into pudding, but that’s one of only many, many reasons my day job doesn’t involve getting punched in the head. If you’re a supervillain or superhero, being punched in the head is kind of an unspoken job requirement.
Henchwench’s power explicitly only work with Supervillains. If they worked with superheroes, she’d probably be called Sidekick Wench. I can’t help but wonder, though, what would happen if she could copy Varia’s powers, then touched her? Probably either nothing… or EVERYTHING.
Oh, and Evil, Inc. is a long-running, self described superhero romantic comedy. I probably should add it to the webcomic widget list, come to think of it.
The vote incentive is updated. If you’ll allow me a human moment, I kind of… eh, freaked out is a little too strong, but I had some… indecision when starting to work on the incentive/pinup for this month. You know, because the Patreon support has more than doubled, which I hugely appreciate, BTW. So I figured this one had better be really good, cause, you know, retention and all. So now I have three aborted attempts to draw Sydney, Pixel and Krona (yes, hard pandering, guilty) either longing in bed together or trying on clothes, but none of it really worked because I reeeealy wanted to turn those pinups into sequential comic scenes, and I don’t have the bandwidth to do multi-character multi-panel pinup quality. I will revisit the idea, don’t worry. Then I started another one with Harem making out with herself in the shower. I like Harem showering a lot, what can I say? Or maybe just sexy women being wet. Probably that one, as now looking back I see that the majority of the sexy pinups involve wet superheroines.
Anyway. Instead I decided to draw the majority of the Semper Vigilantis. In the shower – but it’s a beach shower, so it’s different see? Unfortunately I ran out of room/time to add Scarlett, and also didn’t plan well to include Izanagi (apparently the only male S.V.) walking in on the scene. So you guys get a bonus reverse angle comic to go with the pinups.
For those that don’t recall, the other guy in the pinup comic is Thomas Hodson-Cottingham, a Patreon cameo, whose power is to refill liquids. He’s become sort of an unofficial, honorary Semper Vigilantis, since he hangs out with Crimson and Scarlett all the time. Beyond cartoony asides, I won’t be doing any nude pinups of Patreon cameos – Well, if it’s a character of theirs AND they give me permission, then maybe. But not the cameos where they’re “themselves as a super.” Because that would be creepy. (Especially if I could really nail the likenesses, which, I think we can all admit is not my strong suit.) I do like to think that Hex, Breakpoint, Glowbug and Henchwench all hang out at the same supervillain bar though, so they probably know each other.
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I understand why it’s an extended fight. Max could end this quickly and decisively, but also lethally, and she’s trying to avoid that.
Which doesn’t sound much like Max at all, honestly. From what we’ve seen, she should have already gone homicidal by now. Is she holding off from killing because of PR, or something?
She is in like, Times Square with a buncha people hiding and recording everything.
> From what we’ve seen, she should have already gone homicidal by now.
What makes you think that? I don’t expect Max to want to go lethal at all unless she needs to. So far she’s been all about measured response.
Agreed. If anything Maxima is too cautious and buttoned down.
Yeah. Vehemence saw how ‘measured’ she was when she disitegrated his arm and was going to do the same to his skull.
Yes, she was measured. She gave him a chance to stand down, and he esculated things. When it became clear he was too powerful for everyone else to handle and basic blows weren’t working she took his arm off.
However notice she hasn’t done that to Brut or Henchwench so she is being more measured now than that fight. She threatened to kill him when it became apparent, via his direct threat he intended to kill her and treat every other super like a toy *he got a god complex from his powers*.
Yes, he did. Because only after she realized that she needed to stop him decisively, and all other options were exhausted, she … took his arm off, not his head, and offered him another chance to surrender – which almost cost her her life. And then when Sydney devised another non-lethal way of stopping him, she stood down.
And before she realized how much of a threat he was, she did the same thing she always does with human opponents – use just enough force to beat him. Even against Sciona she ust attempted to restrain her and scolded Dabbler for shooting her.
Maxima is a professional who will do what needs to be done – but only after all other options are exhausted.
Against HW, there’s no need to – she has the fight under control and there’s no indication this will change. She can afford to work out how to get HW to stay down non-lethally.
Bottom line is, anyone who thinks Max is a homicidal loose cannon just doesn’t understand the characters. Max does what is necessary when at war. That’s it.
In that fight several members of Archon had been injured. I don’t think Maxima is aware of Sydney’s kidnapping, and it doesn’t seem like anyone else has been hurt on the Archon side of things. So assuming Maxima has as an objective trying to keep the death toll down, there’s not been any real incentive for her to go lethal.
Dabbles got smacked pretty hard by HW, and we haven’t seen her get back up, have we?
From a strategic standpoint, the most valuable thing Dabbles might be doing is hunting down the flier with the stasis rifle or the two non-terrans with the healing beam. Dabbles is likely under the impression (at the time we saw her last) Halo is out hiding the plot device, and she’s effectively just handed HW and Brut off to Maxima, with Cora keeping all the other mooks down. Depending on how HWs powers work, such as if they’re magical in nature, Dabbles may also be following a ray of magic back to their base as she’d still be salty about Sciona escaping last time.
Most likely event, from Dabbles point of view, is she’s going for a good recording angle on Maxima, hoping a few more threads split, maybe with a lust spell or two being prepped.
So Dabbler’s excuse if she didn’t get knocked out is that she’d rather be a liability to the team rather than assist in anyway.
It was already pretty bad that a punch of that strength could put a seasoned demon sorceress adventurer out of commission, but if she’s decided to slink off and video record while the supers fight other supers instead of helping any further then she’s effectively proving herself unreliable.
But, we have proof of overlapping time here and small windows of time. So maybe she got blindsided enough that the minute or two to get out of the daze hasn’t passed yet. It seems a while by panel, but we know the Henchwench vs Maxima fight was only getting going around the time Cora was there with Sydney cleaning up. So barely anytime has passed.
Fight wise we seem to be playing by DBZ rules, the fight is actually going really fast, but it feels a lot slower as we are seeing the play by play of each attack. The entire sequence with Achilles, Heatwave, and Amorphous fighting Henchwench could easily in motion be less than 20 seconds….maybe a minute counting the pause after Amorphous head inverted.
Why would Max go lethal on these guys?
From a purely practical perspective: they aren’t powerful enough to warrant it. (Unlike Vehemence.)
I would agree. Sure the one villain has a lot of powers, but they haven’t enabled her to get the better of max, just keep her occupied. Max pretty much has her bottled up and contained dealing with her.
Yeah, HW is annoying, and she’s done a lot of property damage – but Max seems to have her contained for now. And Max using enough force to take her down hard is probably going to do even more property damage.
You…may have *seriously* misread her character…
I’m trying to figure out how they are still clothed? That first panel was very promising.
Panek 7: Maxima beating a motherfucker with the same motherfucker.
Gotta say that’s has to be one of the coolest moves in a fight I’ve ever seen.
Reminds me of RvB with Tex beating someone to death with their own skull.
That doesn’t seem physically possible!
That’s what he said!
That was probably one of the most efficient ways of dispatching a villain I’ve ever seen.
I still say Ariana using Lawyer-Fu would have been even more efficient. :)
But yes that was a good one.
I’m reminded of the scene in Robocop.
“Dick, you’re FIRED!”
Murphy: “Thank you.” *BLAM*
Dick was a tough guy. he took multiple, high caliber, shots to center of mass, and was still screaming on his way out the window; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip7GGf2_b6Y
Dramatic license aside, Dick Jones had access to EVERYTHING OCP made. He gave a thug Cobra assault cannons for goodness sake! He was probably wearing the best tech protection available, super armor, nanites or whatever. No one who deals with such scum as Clarence Boddiker would forget to wear something bullet resistant.
Btu then again, As Murphy proved, NOTHING is bullet ‘proof’.
As for this? Henchie is about to hit the floor.
Or, considering what the statue is made of, the floor is about to hit her.
There is definately one thing that is bullet proof:
Not being there.
let the HenchWench hit the floor, let the HenchWench hit the floor…
Plus he probably had superpowers as well which he didnt bother using. His arms clearly start stretching as he’s falling.
https://youtu.be/Ip7GGf2_b6Y?t=92
Then he survived that fall and went into hiding, eventually resurfacing and getting into government, where he rose to become the governor of the entire planet of Mars, until he finally died (possibly) from the actions of Douglas Quaid.
Bit of trivia, the “Auto-9” Robocop uses is actually a Colt SCAMP (Small CAliber Machine Pistol), which was a .22 (5.56mm) rather than a 9mm.
https://modernfirearms.net/en/submachine-guns/u-s-a-submachine-guns/colt-scamp-eng/
Um, no: Robocop’s “Auto 9” is a heavily modified Beretta 93R
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/RoboCop_(1987)#Beretta_93R_.28as_the_.22Auto_9.22.29
5.56 is always, as far as I’ve ever seen, referred to as .223.
.22 is a completely different round. Intended for varmint hunting or even bird using a shot shell variant, not at all a military grade shell. You’d probably need to stack four .22 long shells on top of each other to match the height of a single .223 shell.
Yes, I instantly was reminded of that particular scene as well.
I prognose a major “ouch” incoming.
Same here…Which is why I still regret that this board doesn’t include any way to upvote or like any given comment.
+1
I’m not sure why Henchwench has stuck around so long. What exactly does she think she’s accomplishing here? The “you have to call a board meeting to fire me” trick was cute, but that’s a measure to buy time. Time that she should have spent figuring out how to exit this situation instead of pointlessly tussling with Maxima. Does she want to go to prison?
She’s trying to buy someone else time. Who and why is anyone’s guess.
Maybe she thinks Mr. Severely-Fileted is still in play?
We don’t have to guess who she’s trying to buy time for. He was slap-chopped by Cora a couple of pages ago.
The flying woman that took off with the stasis pod. We haven’t seen her since then.
Correction: Sydney flew off with the stasis pod. The other flier took off with the stasis gun that was being used on Max. Space tech falling into the wrong hands. I really should go back and check these things before posting.
She is definitely power crazy, or just plain crazy.
She’s gone mad with power. :)
Mad? Probably not…She doesn’t even seem to be slightly angry. I think Hench Wench is actually enjoying this, perhaps a bit too much.
But now that she’s fired, maybe not so much. She probably should not expect to collect on any unemployment benefits either…
definition 2.
Mad as in insane.
That was intentional on my part, for the purpose of having a bit of humor.
You know, like the proverbial “mad” scientist that wants to take over the world or something…But when someone calls him “mad,” he would reply, “Mad? No, but I am mildly annoyed.”
sorry, but as obtuse as some comments have been on these pages I tend to assume that’s the case instead of sarcasm.
She’s gone mildly annoyed with power!
I think she is just something of a psycho and is enjoying being having so many powers!
Powers Madness,
As Charles Xavier put it, a mutant driven mad by their own powers. Yes I know she’s not a mutant, paraphrasing there. The general idea being what Maxima was remarking about on the rarity of supers; that some having never encountered anyone like themselves before may have come to the conclusion they are basically living gods; the more powerful the better; and simply can’t accept it when told this isn’t true.
Honestly the problem is Henchwench’s combination of powers, yes Maxima could put her in a hold and get to the ground with her arms forced behind her back but Concretia would likely use geokinesis to cause damage around them, try to hit Maxima or someone else in the back, and any second delay to stop that allows Henchwench to fly out of reach or get back up.
I think this comic trying to be realistic on some points is holding Maxima back as well, because it is really hard to knock someone out in real life and not kill them. (yes boxers do it, but notice it only lasts seconds and even then there is a risk of brain damage), so probably trying to avoid even accidentally killing Henchwench by keeping the strength dialed back but keeping her focused on her.
Is that she’d never even learn that she had them.
She’d go through life with a perfect body and might make a fortune as a model or actress or Instagram cleb or whatever. But the scenario where a person with the sole superpower to gain the superpower of only a villain with a superpower manages to find themselves in the employ of just such a person? It’s not even on par with “lightning through a window strikes some chemicals and now you’re The Flash” kind of improbable.
different topic, you are right though, which applies to most power copiers that are anything other than (scanners) or (area influenced *gain powers of anyone around*) or skin contact maybe. Anything more convoluted and the chances of figuring it out on their own, especially if the super population is low is also low.
However the thing here is the impact of her powers on her sanity. The reason she’d keep on fighting despite it being clear Maxima is holding back, Henchwench has no chance of winning this, and was already told to stand down. That Henchwench may be driven a tad insane or such a condition exacerbated by having powers that give her so many other powers. She just can’t accept the reality in front of her that all this power does not make her an unstoppable juggernaut of power. She’s gone nutso with power.
While I largely agree, I feel like there’s probably a higher than average chance of a woman with a perfect body coming under the employ of a supervillain at some point. Especially one without any particular powers. It’s not like the rich and powerful surrounding themselves with beautiful women is anything uncommon.
Still definitely a low chance, but I mean, c’mon… you get into a modeling/acting career and the odds that you end up tangentially employed by a super villain go up with time, it’s not like we know exactly how many layers of employment her power can work through.
Assuming it’s generally known that Powers invariably come with physical appearance, I’d expect that rate to go up. If there’s someone around that you think might be a potential asset, but they haven’t realised it yet, you call dibs before the other side does.
“there is a risk of brain damage)” Which is what happened, to Muhammad Ali.
Yep. Turns out, surprise surprise, that having your brain repeatedly smashed into your skull isn’t terribly great for it.
Boxers don’t even wear any head protection, and a padded glove isn’t a substitute for that when it’s being driven into your face backed by the full power of the opponent. Football (US football) players wear hard helmets and still suffer from brain trauma from all the repeated smashing into one another. Soldiers wear Kevlar helmets and brain trauma is common. And Soccer (non-US football) players even suffer this due to using their heads on the ball, which is driven by the full force of top rated athletes with incredibly powerful legs.
If memory serves, brain injuries to boxers actually increased when gloves became the default over bare-knuckle. Bare-knuckle, there’s a limit to how hard you can hit before you start doing serious damage to the hand. Gloves, by protecting the hand, allow that limit to increase – but it’s still landing on the same (relatively) unprotected body.
I have read authors who proposed that at least part of Howard Hughes’ eccentricity was due to brain trauma from having put his face through an aircraft instrument panel on multiple occasions.
I’m impressed she put up such a fight.
Now Sydney has to get Concreta’s body back before they execute it.
Its one of those situations where the fight couldve been ended ages ago but Maxima isnt big on killing(Otherwise in this universe America would be an empire by now) so shes trying to avoid overkilling someone with unknown levels of damage resistance.That said if Hench whatshername was actually an intelligent person shed be a horrifyingly powerful employee capable of an endless variety of tasks instead of….well……this idiot.
Aaaaand now Arc Swat has the phone numbers and gps data to ping all the LLC members as well as likely their personal data. GG guys.
The fact that the Evil Inc company name comes up on the caller ID of someone else’s phone tells us it’s already a known entity. Now I want to know why they’ve been flying under Archon’s radar. But a) it’s probably a very new company and b) mingled with thousands of other new superhero/villain-themed companies registered since the Archon reveal, so I can see why ArcLight/Dark wouldn’t have found them immediately.
No, I think that was just Dave just avoiding writing an actual number on it.
Aftr all, people are calling meteorologists and complaing about the weather…
There’s a poor bloke by the name of Al Nino who gets flooded with angry calls every time El Nino wreaks havok.
The few times an actual valid phone number has been used in a movie, people calls it.
And while most of the readers here are sensible people with refined taste in comics there could be an oddball lurking about.
Anthony Lion has unlocked ‘Master of Understatement’! :D
Also, I used to live near a town with an 867 exchange number, and met quite a few people who asserted either they or a close relative had to change their number in the early 80s. The phone company there has that number excluded to this day.
That number now belongs to a carpet store, if my recollection is correct. In more than one area code.
You’d just incorporate with a plausible cover story: video game developers, maybe.
I can’t say why, but kronas eyes/face look kinda weird/creepy in the vote inc picture
I am curious as to who the lady in the umbral veil is.
That would be Crimson, Scarlett’s sister vampire. Krona looks angry because two of the Sv guys have (inadvertantly) walked in on them showering.
This means that Grrlverse vampires could give a rats ass about running water.
As it should be, that is one of the dumbest weaknesses ever given to anything.
this running water thing every time it comes up it just got worse and worse; I mean a magic boundary like not crossing a line of salt or having to be invited in sure; but when Hammer films turned it into a way to kill vampires they opened an annoying Pandora’s box.
it is so much worse when Video games do it, on the one hand I get using it as an excuse to create hazards or map limitations but it in-universe you just turned your powerful vampires into the wicked witch of the west or the equivalent of living in a world made of acid. Having Kane or BloodRayne being burned by contact with water was so irritating, more so BloodRayne as I feel it made the first level harder than every other level in the entire game..a swamp.
what makes that worse is games and such may keep the running water…or just water weakness, but gloat about removing the weaknesses to the Cross, or the no reflection bit…all three of these are Christian vampire rules.
Cross is obvious,
the no reflection was because mirrors had silver backings and silver represented Christ…also glass was said in some countries to represent the Holy Ghost; so a mirror could not reflect anything evil.
the running water was also a Christian aspect, evil beings could not touch or cross the boundary of Baptisms…yeah that’s where that is from. Although this does feel tact on as we do have pre-Christian entities that also couldn’t pass streams but those seem to be territory boundary related or streams also represented good spirits (fresh water, necessity of life will have that impression),
But yeah pulling a “our vampires are different” yet tacking on some of the worst weaknesses or inconsistent ones; honestly as muddled as vampire folklore gets *by using the term to combine together unrelated things with a few similarities…and not even the same similarities as you go down the line…we get a whole mess of fiction where like dragons or kaiju it turns into a “eh you’ll know it when you see it”.
I’d vote for the stake through the heart being the dumbest weakness ever, given that it is also quite effective against non-vampires*. I mean, how much more like a witch trial can that get: “If she floats (manages to not drown when pitched into water wearing 5 layers of clothing from ankle to wrist), she’s a witch. We’ll fish her out and burn her. If she sinks (death by drowning), she was innocent!” Yeah, and also dead, making you a murderer… But instead it’s: “Your Honor, I drove a stake through his heart and he died, so he was a vampire. I committed no murder, this was the just killing of a foul monster!”
The weakness to the crucifix was an odd one, given that at the time the entire world that could read a vampire novel was Christian, and you couldn’t turn around without being poked in the eye by a crucifix. A vampire shouldn’t be able to do much at all in such an environment. Perhaps it was the typical “Well if a vampire got him clearly he wasn’t devout enough, and therefore he deserved it” kind of thought process, similar to the “you got a disease, so clearly you’re a sinner and God is punishing you for it” bullshit.
The garlic one is just confusing, as it seems to be a fairly random ancient connection between strong aromas somehow driving off evil spirits, and vampires apparently qualify as such despite being corporeal and not spirits.
.
* The same applies to the silver bullet in the heart for werewolves.
I’ve heard the garlic thing justified as vampires inheriting their sires’ allergies, and the first one being allergic to garlic. But that’s just a modern rationale.
Not being able to cross running water is a pretty common supernatural weakness in multiple mythologies around the world.
My favorite supernatural weakness was in “That Darned Squid God”; The threat in question was immune to any weapon made by man. (Or woman, it wasn’t pendantic.) Pretty tough until they figured it out and beat it to death with rocks.
the sheer variety is why I laugh when someone insists that vampires obey specific rules only; like…two townships over had different specifics, its only thanks to works of popular fiction that more precise lines started to be made or embellished, and the modern vampire stories are more akin to a combination of succubus/incubus with a dash of fairy abductor/ogre/dragon and under world gods. a far cry from the near mindless blood drinking to kill their own family ghost/zombie like creature that was the Vampire. But the name sticks.
I accidently backspaced on my own comment it seems when I mentioned the running water thing. Yeah, as an example the Nuckelevee won’t cross streams, although this seems to be because it hates fresh water; won’t appear when it rains either, yeah somehow this skinless horse monstrosity is a salt water creature that comes ashore because it hates people. It also serves I think with the whole fresh water is our lively hood take care of it angle and a feeling of security for small villages. Don’t go into the mountain the “insert nightmarish horror here” lives there and will eat you, but don’t worry it can’t enter the village because of the river we live next to.
that squid god thing reminds me of something else. DC comics Power Girl, at one time they limited her invulnerability to only be synthetic materials. Bullets, cars, ect… couldn’t hurt her, but natural objects like rocks and sharp sticks could.
The stake through the heart was funny enough due to poverty.
In some ancient tales of rising undead a way to keep the evil spirit bound to the grave was to put an iron fence around the grave or embed iron stakes into the ground above the coffin. But to calm the worried towns people blaming the dead for death *pretty much the origin of like 95% of vampiric entity myths*, it was cheaper to put one stake into the body its self, the heart was thought to be the center of the soul, and go down that line even further and it gets made of cheaper material.
funny enough the wooden stake was only because of it was cheap for “professional vampire hunters” to leave behind in the grave. Heck even in the novel Dracula it was any sharp object piercing the heart, you could kill a vampire or bind it to the grave with anything sharp, a knife, dagger, a fricken fork…a spoon if you really tried hard enough.
modern stories try to make it more special with silver or specific kinds of wood, but in general the original vampire myths weren’t wealthy counts and barons but the poor, the average vampire was something like, “grandpa died last week and now his granddaughter is very sick…he must be rising from his grave to suck drops of blood from her finger tips, lips, and nipples; we better dig him up and do something about this*. So poor solutions, stab the body, burn the body, reassemble the bones before reburying the body, sorts of deals.
But yes, the whole evil spirits thing had that double edged knife to it, if you were being targeted people would blame you for being unclean. Its not that different today when it comes to health, this very troubling mental state of (I’m not sick therefor whatever I am doing must be right; oh you got sick, then you must be doing something wrong so got sick; its your fault), also this applies to financial situations, never realizing how much external factors and just pure dumb luck can play into these things. So yeah there was a stigma when people got sick that either the person sick did something to invite evil or someone else in the house or neighbor must have done so otherwise these pure Christians wouldn’t be suffering. Hence witch trials, exorcists, stuff that in reality always make things worse.
the silver bullet as a side note is mostly Hollywood. It was you toss something silver over a werewolf and it forced them back into human form. Werewolves weren’t berserkers in folklore they willingly changed *usually*, and it was complicated on how to become one. Werewolf trials were also witch trials. Also mental illnesses like the above being blamed as self inflicted sinful sorcery. You could injure and kill a werewolf like any other creature, several stories included inflicting a wound on a wolf that was later found on a person indicating they were the wolf that was injured.
Funny extra there: werewolves turned completely into wolves, but there are a ton of myths about dog and wolf people around the world, Greece, Scandinavia, and indigenous tribes around Hudson Bay down to Michigan and Illinois had myths about such figures; but they were seldom shapeshifters, and definitely not feral *usually*. But the two things have gotten kind of fused in pop culture, kind of like how the Wendigo and nameless evil forest spirits that look like humans mixed with dead animals, got mixed together thanks to a movie and then popculture liking the image so much they ran with it.
In the comics Blade wasn’t a katana wielding badass. He used wooden knives to kill vampires. One maneuver he’d pull was to pin a vamp’s arm to a wall with a thrown knife. That somehow prevented them from escaping by turning to mist, then he could get close and deliver the kill.
It’s not that dying to a stake through the heart was a test for vampirism, but rather that nothing short of such would suffice. Could be worse, though: originally, you had to dig up the suspected vampire as it slept in its grave, cut its head off with a single blow of the gravedigger’s shovel, then pound the stake through the lid of the coffin, through the heart of the headless corpse, and out the back of the coffin. Only then could you be sure that it wouldn’t rise again.
The garlic thing is because the sulphur compounds in garlic oil have mild antiseptic properties, so garlic oil on a bandage can help keep a wound from festering. In a time when gems were unknown, it was just assumed that garlic had magic against death.
I believe in that method they were also supposed to put the coffin back in the ground upside down, so just in case everything else failed it would dig down instead of up for some reason that must have made sense to the person who made that up…guess vampires had no sense of gravity. That said there were a few other vampire types where putting the body upside down in the grave was supposed to help keep it from rising again.
Crimson, she’s a vampire
It’s nice of Krona to give Scarlett a little shade. Can’t have her bursting into flames on such a nice day.
Thanks to the folks who answered. I have a hard time keeping track of the characters.
Maxima had better be careful her next punch isn’t unintendingly lethal!
Maxima’s super speed should allow her to switch down to ‘unpowered advasary’ mode midway through an attack.
Suddenly bereft of superhuman stamina might drop HW to the ground with a full body charleyhorse.
I was curious what would happen if she suddenly lost powers while astral projecting, a snap back or a lost spirit scenario.
HW is still at least a super – a Max-powered concrete body to the head will probs knock her out, but it shouldn’t kill her. Max isn’t going for lethal, here.
“A super” doesn’t mean anything. Powers take all sorts of different shapes, and there doesn’t seem to be a base package that goes beyond the “perfect physique”. For example, Harem(with all bodies active) isn’t stronger than a normal woman of her build.
Base HW is only humanly strong, but with Brüt’s powers, her skin can stop .577 bullets. If Maxima’s next attack is still geared for that, HW is paste.
That said, with the concrete, strength and flight powers disabled, Max can just wrestle her to the ground and handcuff her.
Wait. Hench Wench’s powers only work with SUPERVILLAINS?
Okay there’s something majorly psychosomatic going on – that seems way too specific. :)
Umm, yeah, it was stated when she first appeared (or maybe it was her second appearance)
Yes I know but I figured it was more like ‘She gets the powers of ANYONE she’s working for. Not just ‘supervillains.’
and obviously those she believes are super villains, like Concretia who is being coerced.
But yeah its been discussed, the general consensus has been her power limitation is likely psychosomatic and not an actual built in feature, but some powers are affected by one’s belief in how they work; or limited by that; so a power copier who convinced herself her powers have this really specific limitation works out as its one of the more vague powers on how it works anyway *likely has a psionic element to link to others or psy-astral element*,
the whole contract thing otherwise would imply Henchwench’s powers are fae or demon magic based rather than super.
a real question is, was Concretia part of that phone call just now…somehow; or someone representing her back at “the boat”.
Remember we only have HW’s word for that.
It could be inherent, psychosomatic, or just an untrue belief. I mean, we just had another super learn something new about her powers one page ago. For all we know, HW does get powers from heroes or civilian supers too and just never tested it, because she made assumption about her powers and ran with it.
Or maybe HW’s statement isn’t to be taken literally but rather reflective of her self image as a henchwoman – she would never consider to go legit, so it doesn’t matter.
No, we also have DaveB’s word on it now. That’s why i’m surprised. :)
True, I missed that.
Though im often critical(Hence the name) I confess this is unusually bad writing by Daves standards but easily handwaved as not actually being a power limitation and as others have said before a limitation based on the clearly not entirely sane womans beliefs.
Heck it could even plausably be that if she wasnt completely bonkers she could have access to every power in a 100 mile radius which given that supers are really common in this universe could possibly make her stronger than Maxima
Since when did Heatwave look so much like Starfire from the Teen Titans?
Does this mean that Hench Wench actually loses her powers when she’s fired.. or when she KNOWS she is fired? Because that isn’t the same thing at all.
You kind of have to officially notify a person that their employment has been terminated. You can’t take their Red Stapleraway, move their desk to Storage Room B, and just stop paying them.
someone should have told the store manager at Home Depot that.
Stupid story: I took a summer job at Home Depot, they didn’t give me an exact end date of the employment only that it would be sometime come fall as they only temporarily needed extra cashiers for the busier seasons; a seasonal job.
Well the cashier department manager was remarking I was doing such a good job they’d likely keep me on. But then one day the store manager sees me gets this confused look on his face takes me in his office and gives me this condescending talk about, “you know you were only working here for seasonal right?”, and even called in the hiring manager and all that…I wish I hadn’t been young when this happened, because if this happened NOW; I’d have berated him for being a dumbass and not giving me an actual end date for the job, some vague…a few months…doesn’t cut it. Yet there I was being talked down to like I was just supposed to know not to come in…which was also a failure on their inter-department communications because…I was still being put on the schedule. I had a schedule, its not like I just showed up whenever I felt like it. All things he’d have gotten an earful about today. Hell I should have reported him to the regional manager for that crap.
As far as I am aware, it is actually illegal for them to pull that, and they should be officially investigated for that incident and any like it (stuff like that doesn’t usually just happen once, unfortunately). If you were still on the schedule, you were still on the payroll and the Manager had no right to talk down to you like that as an employee.
yeah if something like this happened now I’d give them an earful and contact corporate. But this happened at a summer job in my early 20s and I had only had a few short term jobs before that.
Someone here’s watched Office Space. :)
Maximas new clothes are already being torn apart. A occupational hazard for supers.
What if the superheroes convince some jailed supervillains to hire Hench Wench? But then it’s debatable if said villains are still acting like villains. Also it’s possible that HW also get stereotype villainous behavior with the superpowers. That could explain her hammy act thus far.
Yeah, Heatwave (I can’t just type HW now, ’cause that’s HenchWench – annoying!) is probably lucky that Brut distracted her from throwing that fireball at them. If she’d burnt off more of Max’s clothing, she’d get a SERIOUS upbraiding after the fight…
DaveB, I have often noted when your art went above and beyond looking awesome, but…
Panel 6 blows all your other art away. Definitely you’ve brought things to a whole new level. Bravo!
I also like Order of the Stick, but always liked your comic more. But there was always something… missing. Now I see what it was and I am truly fulfilled.
Again, bravo!
But think of the spin Ariana will do.
Arianna: Sure (insert GAP rep), Max can personally deliver the cleaned shirt with “Authentic Battle Damage” for a small licensing fee…. Muahahahaha
the… stolen shirt? there was no time for an official representative of the company to conduct the sale. At best, Maxima left some cash and a note on the front counter, maybe with some price tags.
That doesn’t guarantee the sale will be official, though
Not stolen, “comandeered” (and yes, that’s legal). And yes, there was some debate at the time about whether she could’ve realistically left cash or swiped her card, but even if she didn’t even leave an IOU, the store manager (or anyone higher) would be a complete moron to complain about all the free publicity they’re getting right now for supporting the captain of the world’s first superhero team in defending against the world’s first alien invasion.
The GAP design teams should at this very moment frantically creating advertising for the pre-, mid-, and post-battle versions of her outfit, while their legal team is drafting copyright applications (or whatever the fashion equivalent is? Pander?). It’s official ArcMerch so they’ll have to pay out the royalties – I’d actually be surprised if Arianna didn’t already have some clause addressing such situations.
” the pre-, mid-, and post-battle versions of her outfit, while their legal team is drafting copyright applications (or whatever the fashion equivalent is? Pander?).”
Copyright’s the correct term here, you’re good. :) Clothing designs can be subject to copyright.
Yay me! Someday before I launch my software side projects into startups, I really need to learn the differences between trademark, copyright, and all the other forms of intellectual property.
I’d expect an Archon battle-damage line with actual rips (like panel 1) to do fairly well, at least among fans of supers.
I’ll give you the short cliffnotes primer on it.
Intellectual Property law is mainly composed of three areas – copyright, trademarks, and patents. Four if you include Trade Secrets, which is closely related to patent law.
Copyrights protect creative or intellectual works, while trademarks are more about protecting commercial names, phrases, and logos (ie, company name, brand identties, slogans, etc). Patents protect inventions that are new/novel, useful, and non-obvious.
For example, at a restaurant:
So you can copyright a menu design, if it has a particular manner of the owner’s expression. ie, the way you arrange, compile, or order the food or drink items on the menu.
You can trademark your restaurant’s logo, your company name, or the name of the restaurant itself, or the name of the food on your menu if it’s a special name, like ‘Whopper,’ or a slogan like ‘Have it your way.’ or ‘Where’s the Beef?’ in your advertisements.
You can patent a recipe, if it did not exist prior to you applying for the patent, like the ‘Dan’s ‘ Or you could just keep it a trade secret, like the Colonel’s secret blend of herbs and spices. The main difference between patents and trade secrets:
1) a patent has limited period of exclusivity, and you have to make it public in order to get that limited period of exclusivity, and once the time period is up, anyone else can go to the patent office and use the expired patent to copy it. Before that, no one is allowed to copy your invention.
2) a trade secret has unlimited exclusivity, as long as no one else finds out how to duplicate it, but once someone else does find out, you can’t stop anyone from copying your invention.
Or with Archon:
The name “ARCHON” and ARC-whatever would be a trademark.
The clothing design itself could be a copyright. As would any licensed biography about Archon or movies about them (think The Seven from ‘The Boys’ except Archon are actually REAL heroes).
Although the slogan on a Halo shirt, for example, would also be a trademark.
Sydney’s special recipe of weapons grade spaghetti sauce that involves peppers that are red, but are not red peppers, which may be responsible for burning Kelly Rippa’s face off, could be patented. Otherwise, it’s a trade secret until she lets someone know what the heck those peppers are.
Or Ashley’s ‘Q-Vex’ and ‘Oobtek’ is patented. The names of Q-Vex and Oobtek, however, are trademarks.
Where I wrote ‘Dan’s’ I’m referring to ‘Dan’s Special Sauce’ which is a patented bbq sauce.
Sorry I must have accidentally deleted most of that sentence.
That was all actually really helpful, thanks! I actually know a patent lawyer, but he’s always reluctant to talk shop (apparently some people have work-life balance?).
Also, I had completely forgotten about the proposed talk show tour, that would make a great montage (*cough Dave cough cough*)
I had to scroll back up and count the panels to get your joke LUL
i honestly thought the ‘Order of the Stick’ reference would have made it more obvious to people but i guess not. :)
“Evil, Inc.”
Gee, thanks Dave. Now I have yet another comic I have to binge if I want to stay current.
Being entertained is such a chore. ;)
You have many years’ worth of comics to read (it… gets a little confusing about a year ago though)
A little confusing like M3 where suddenly its following a different cast of characters, or a little confusing like Sluggy Freelance where years worth of interconnecting different stories are colliding with each other or some weird thing happens and suddenly everyone is in this other world story arc that spends a year of real world time on events that once over won’t ever come up again…maybe.
I am always looking for new comics to check out.
“Confusing” as in the artist completely rebooted the story line. We still have (mostly) the same characters, but their situations and relationships are significantly different. I’ve been kind of losing interest, but I haven’t quit reading yet.
If you like superhero comics, I have a couple of recommendations. Salvadora features a college student who finds an alien super suit and has (frequently silly) adventures. All of the supers we’ve seen so far are female, and one thing I like about the comic is they feature a variety of body types. It’s relatively new, so an archive binge isn’t much of a slog. League of Super-Redundant Heroes features the (mis)adventures of a team of generally inept supers living in a city where two thirds of the population are either superheroes or super villains. The archive is quite a bit deeper, but well worth it.
Ah,
It makes me feel like a hypocrite to say I can’t stand when that happens. As on the other hand I understand why they’d do that. I have done something like it myself, but I mostly write as a hobby and post my stories online just to share them. Although that is more an excuse. I have at times a really bad habit of mixing themes and characters together that really shouldn’t be together, and I get these ideas for how they could have been “better” if they had been more in a focused setting. I had this series “Midgardia” that had demons from hell, gods, space police, super heroes, magical characters coming to their world, eldritch abominations, a secret society of monsters, and even kaiju. This mess was mostly background for short horror stories, also some of my old series to experiment with characters (Tournament of Darkness), (From the Abyss), (Overlord Tournament), I still don’t know why I felt the need to also have the kaiju stuff as part of that same setting; and I even ended up mixing in my outline for a slice of life magical adventure series for one (Mirai the Summoner) and her friends…
I eventually deus ex machinaed that reality splitting it, and performed a soft reboot on Mirai, giving her, her own series (that I sporadically update) called “Celestial Summoner”, I just posted chapter 1 of book 3 of that series.
However I have made a mess of another series (The Hell Series) which was supposed to take ONLY the horror elements from Midgardia and stories taking place in Hell; yet somehow I am staring at newer chapters with fricken superheroes in them *my outline lists this as a temporary passing thing, but still taking a step back it just muddles it again*, I even have my horror character “The Doll Collector” changing name to “The Queen of Puppets” and acting as a Tokusatsu villain (It is in her description to play different games but…I also have an alien invasion and fantasy characters coming in)… the main problem being this new arc is supposed to be part of a “continuing adventures of” type series for my fantasy characters as they travel to various worlds. But taking a step back I feel I took an idea that should have been simple and made it a little too big by combining too many cross-over ideas into one event.
Sometimes you really need to take a step back and think, “does this really belong here?” or rethink the directions you’ve gone in and what you can do with it without feeling obligated to continue a storyline you really aren’t liking the direction its going.
Heck I’ve decided to have one series ignore that it started in the Hell series and focus only on its own theme (My Genie), as the cross-over element derailed their plots.
and working on another story taking place in Hell that I will treat as its own separate thing. As well as restarting my kaiju series as ONLY kaiju, and ignore some of the dumb stuff I put on Azuaria.
and I know just typing all that, that my big problem is I have a ton of ideas, different stories that want to be written, and in my attempt to make it easier I end up writing them all at once into one story which eventually causes them to diminish each other. My best stuff always has been the stuff that stays focused.
on those others, I will check out Salvadora. I currently have Super Redundant Heroes on my check marked list. Has one of my favorite funny superhero moments, a bank robbery works only because every superhero in the bank is afraid of exposing their secret identity, yet pretty much every person in that bank was a superhero in their secret identity.
checking on it,
I will add I’d never lock an archive behind a pay wall. Hell I am more embarrassed by past stuff than proud enough to charge anyone for reading what amounts to thought doodles between college classes as far as my oldest stuff that got online is concerned. Honestly re-reading my stuff from 2002 I am embarrassed to remember I tried to get those published.
Yeah, the confusion was: he never actually mentioned it being a reboot (or maybe he did and simply missed or forgot it in the confusion), it just went from the two having a clandestine family to barely even knowing each other (with the family completely forgotten)
It’s still, POO, a good read and it remains a regular read for me
It was a great series. Unfortunately a couple of years ago it more or less turned into an ad for his patreon exclusive porn spinoff.
Don’t read Evil Inc (or any of Brad’s stuff, actually), but I thoroughly enjoy the Comic Lab podcast he does with one of my favorite creators Dave Kellett. Great advice for any creative, and they are hilarious to just listen to.
Dave writes the light-hearted Sheldon and the comedy sci-fi Drive, and also did the wonderful Stripped documentary on the history of the comic strip industry, which included poster art and an interview from the infamously reclusive Bill Watterson.
In the last panel, is Heatwave lifting Brüt’s arm just so he can point at Hench Wench dramatically?
… Yes
This is the best I’ve seen Max drawn yet.
I’d expect that someone on the team has healing powers, which would help Henchwench.
Judging from first panel where HW seems to have intact front teeth, and the fact she is able to bite super-tough Max’ear hard enough with her super-strength to make it hurt, it looks like someone in the LLC power package had regeneration. Well, good for her. She was able to regrow lost teeth before she was depowered and sent to jail (or the same work-release deal as Jabberwoky, but she seems a little too power-mad for that, barring a major change of attitude).
It would actually be pretty simple to control HW once she no longer has powers. Even when no longer in jail. Just have her sign as part of her parole or plea bargain agreement that any employment offer she takes must first be agreed to by her parole officer, who must first submit the job offer for a review in order to assure there are no supers involved in the C-level chain. :)
I think it’s just too low resolution – I’m seeing a shadow that could be one of the missing teeth. Her nose is definitely still broken and bruised.
I still feel like Henchwench had too specific of a power, lol. How the hell do you even figure out you have that specific power?
one day you have a super power, but then suddenly its gone…then realize the boss at the last place you worked had that same super power…and then convince yourself he was must be evil because he fired you, therefor must be a super villain; and convince yourself of that SOO HARD that what could have been an unstoppable OP power becomes limited because of a psychosomatic reason, and you keep telling yourself that and telling others that and it just cements its way in your mind like that.
Assuming of course the real limitation of her Power Copier ability was (Social link).
-A Social link power copier is one that has to have some connection to the person or persons they are copying. In a normal situation this is a “my friends’ power is with me” a bond of friendship, bond of comradely/ally in battle, being in a relationship with them, ect…a psionic connection. Psychologically there is a tendency for some people to gorm a pseudo-family mental association with co-workers (this is actually a bad thing in a capitalist society and gets you taken advantage of and feeling hurt when the authority figure of the pseudo-tribe fires you), but in a more natural setting it makes sense to form a social bond with others who you need to trust to have your back while you have theirs.
So my theory: she got herself really twisted up and can only form the mental social link now under really specific conditions.
The local space tea leaves fortune teller of course.
Next page, Henchie: “Shoulda read the contract better, only the one who formed the L.L.C. has the authority to fire, or hire, anyone. Guess who formed the L.L.C.?”
then max probly takes her to orbit or near orbit and suddenly no more nicy nice restraint. and more less surrender or head comes off like a GI Joe action figure
Unlikely, since she doesn’t seem to be a member, just an employee.
Also, she previously said it was two-thirds vote to fire her.
Agreed, I’m pretty sure being her own boss in the legal chain, via owning or managing the LLC, would negate the subordinate clause of her powers.
Hmm, what does it say about Maxi that she’s more concerned about Henchie biting her ear than she is with Henchie ripping her top?
Max have been a superhero for years so I’m sure she is used to clothing damage by now.
I don’t think Max is actually hurt here, just irritated by someone well below her power class trying to fight dirty.
There is no such thing as ‘fight dirty’ in a street fight
Well, actually, there is, it’s just not against the non-existent rules (kinda like how some people in DCUO continue to bitch about someone using Sodas to ‘heal’ during a Duel)
then max probly takes her to orbit or near orbit and suddenly no more nicy nice restraint. and more less surrender or head comes off like a GI Joe action figure
soul Henchwench , stone Henchwench and flesh Henchwench all against maxima and she is having a ball!
Why does Pixel look so annoyed in the shower?
That’s Krona, not Pixel. Note her ‘Interface’ orbiting her left hand.
Also:
– I don’t know why she’s annoyed – maybe because everyone else there is taller and curvier than her? (I wish it to be noted that I am not complaining.)
– I like how Crimson comes with her own sunlight-dampening aura.
– Shouldn’t that book be in a bag or something? I mean, I know it’s probably enchanted as HELL and completely impervious to water damage and all that – still, seeing a book get wet just squicks me out…
Yeah, it was bagged when she was in the pool prior to the “Girls’ Night Out”
Presumably from what we see in the ‘reverse-angle’ picture, where two of the male SVs have just ‘accidentally’ walked in the door. They may not want to hang around to find out what she’s editing!
From the way she looks at the water, I think it’s too cold for her, and she’s hacking the temperature.
She’s not nipply enough for it to be a “too cold water” issue.
Unless she’s smat and holds a hand in first. Also, she probably can do something about nipplyness.
Now she going to have to Sign up for COBRA. not the evil criminal syndicate, but the insurance thing, wait never mind.
Is COBRA Insurance Evil?
Me: “My job disappeared, they said I could continue my insurance if I paid the premiums
COBRA agent: “Yes! The monthly premium is about 30% of your unemployment”
Me: “Ouch! What’s the deductible?”
COBRA agent: “A month or two of unemployment”
Me: “Double Ouch! Well, I guess I need it …”
COBRA agent: “Now let’s talk about the co-pay.”
Yes, Evil. Lawful evil, but evil.
COBRA is so spendy because it covers so dang much, retroactively. I had a coworker spiral compound fracture his leg jumping snowmobiles. He was young and had been on his dad’s insurance, but his dad had retired 6(-ish?) weeks earlier and he had zero coverage.
As I recall, they signed some COBRA paperwork after the surgery, and it covered the ER, crutches, some physical therapy, whole shebang – for about 1/4 of what the full bill would have been with no insurance.
Fair enough.
I suppose it’s just math.
Still annoying.
You probably mean Cue (as in “cue an actor for their lines”), and not Queue (as in “form a line”).
Hey, at least you didn’t use ¿Que?
this
Speaking of Evil Inc., I severely dislike that they have hidden what used to be publicly available comics (their archive) behind a paywall. It’s pretty much impossible to get into now.
Nigh impossible you say? Have you tried… paying the creator for his work?
Honestly I prefer to just buy a hard copy of the first few books like I have with girl genius and like I’m considering with Safe Haven
Impossible? Did you tried wayback machine?
Hench-Wench will be all over Brut like a tacky leisure suit…..
… Is there any other kind of leisure suit? :thinking:
No, but that hasn’t stopped (maybe even be a part of the reason why) a dude named Larry has enjoyed a run of nearly a dozen video games so far.
Yeah, don’t believe ever played his games, but have heard of him (pre-internet wasn’t it?)
Evil Inc?????
Hey, I’ve read that comic…For as long as it was still free. I could understand that they had the “After Dark” version (NSFW) behind a paywall, but Ii can’t afford to pay for comics, especially considering how many I’ve bookmarked.
It’s still free, they just had an arc with some immortal Egyptian trying to ‘steal’ Match-stick Girl by stabbing her with a magical dagger
The current page is still free but if you missed any pages at all they have the archives behind a paywall.
A ‘good’ HenchWench woudln’t be called Sidekick Wench, but Sidekick Chick, obviously.
This would result in a situation where, for short, she would be called either, “Sidekick” or “KickChick”, both of which would cause villians judging her by her name to horribly underestimate her.
Side note, she totally should have run for US office, so she could have been the employee of a LOT of people. Mayor Henchwench would be formidable. Governor Henchwench would be a God-tier villain. A president HenchWench would be neigh unstoppable short of entities like Q or Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan (why do both short and long times strike as extra intimidating, but normal length names, more often than not, are generally ‘meh’?)
Heh, you could at least have some good discussions about the possible ramifications…
Given that “You’re a public servant, so you work for me” isn’t literally true, does the power function at all?
If it does, does it apply to a villain who either didn’t vote or who voted for her opponent?
If a villain moves out of her district (or in some other way is no longer is one of her constituents), does she lose their power?
I’m calling this scene dumb on so many levels. The names (evil inc, not to mention the reminder that the muscle guy calls himself “brood”), then the idea of canceling a full blown fight via an executive meeting via phone…
I would call this a work of genre parody if those moves weren’t presented with a somewhat straight typeface.
this is a comedy. Have you actually been reading this comic?
Besides how many people in comments kept commenting about this exact sort of scenario depowering Henchwench.
The idiot on the ground calls himself ‘Brut’ (with a stupid umlaut over the ‘u’) not ‘brood’
And no one is cancelling the fight via phone, they are simply removing Henchies ‘borrowed’ powers by effectively kicking her out of the company
So it’s confirmed that maxima can swing you around so hard your soul leaves the body right? Cause pretty sure henchwench’s soul/astral projection just unwillingly flew out of that body
She also literally knocked Henchies block off in the first panel
Nooooo Heatwave. Lift with your legs not your back!
This probably will come up later back at ARC HQ…
On the evidence, some female Supers are genetically programmed to lift by pointing the bust in one direction and the butt in the other, to the endless frustration of ArcOSHA
Grew up doing construction – now I need an ArcOSHA side comic of some poor enforcement schmuck following ArcSwat around trying to force them to use proper PPE and lifting technique while saving the world, while also arguing with the actual OSHA about adding his new super regulations to the main code book.
Nah just the Lamentations of OSHA Arc – set in a dive bar. (also supervillains hang out there. The failed ones). Think Cheers but mostly Beers and Tears instead.
Bartender is an alien doing his thesis on Alien psycology and sorta ran out of grant money when his university got nuked by its own EnergyDept.
OSHA guy comes in everyday instead of HELLO or NORRM… it’s Them :Grunt…moan Him…tell me about it. that’s the first panel punchline every time he enters the dive.
A few villains two retired goons a clumsy Semi-speedster waitress gets everyone their drinks fast..but if there’s a peanut on the floor. disaster. She tried to debut as a super hero, but KO’d herself with her own breasts running to save someone. She became a meme. Poster child for super bras. Only thing she has going for her now is a super toddler fathered by some super she can’t remember from some party in NY.
Thus the bar has a play room that can hold a class 4 superstrong superhero/villain. You act up in this bar you get a time out . if you’re unlucky the toddler is in there too.
She’s survived on residuals from her video’s for years (and a few magazine shoots).
OSHA Guy comes here often now. Place and people don’t scare him He explains things the violations, the need for new rules…unpredictability of his job. The dangers.
He looks on the bad end of forty.
He’s twenty five.
Anyone want to add to the cast of regulars? The two goons? The retired villains that come in and always bring their own sandwiches from the jewish deli around the corner. The cook no one sees in back.
This is a Safe zone for them. Somewhat respected as neutral ground. It’s also a place where bacherlorette parties happen a lot for some reason. (there’s a strip club for women next door or across street?).
Upstairs they teach line dancing and tap.
This could be a comedy tv show if we pitch it right!
So… only villains can lend Hench Wench their power? “How to define a villain” just became a very load-bearing question.
Is it based on their own actions? If so, who draws the line that they must cross to qualify? And are motivations or mitigating circumstances taken into account?
Is it based on their own perceptions? If so, someone who considers themselves ‘a necessary evil for a greater good’ may not qualify regardless of their actions. And someone who thinks the worst of themselves may qualify even if their hands are scrupulously clean both legally and morally.
Is it based on their opposition to a declared ‘hero’ (or group thereof), regardless of actual actions or motives? If so, what level of (active or passive) opposition is required? And who gets to nominate the heroes?
I don’t think it’s so much that Hench Wench can only get the powers of supervillains as much as she has to have literal consent, and heroes aren’t willing to give anyone as unstable and manipulative and conniving as Hench Wench consent to use their powers.
If for some reason she ever were to reform herself, she might be able to get powers from heroes if she can get their consent.
That’s what I thought as well, with maybe a few tweaks on the formality of consent/employment. Up until today’s Word of DaveB that “Henchwench’s powers explicitly only work with Supervillains. If they worked with superheroes, she’d probably be called Sidekick Wench“. Your point still stands, about what type of employer is most likely to be willing to lend her their Power, but apparently that’s not enough.
I’ve never heard the rhetorical term mis-quoted as “load-bearing question”, but as a (former) structural engineer and mildly-compulsive pedant I absolutely love it.
Happy to oblige!
It’s not really a misquote, though; for some reason, I didn’t actually notice the similarity to ‘loaded question’ when I compared a question to a critical part of a structure…
A very good point. Take Concretia: She is being coerced via what is essentially kidnapping and threat of torture and/or death. And obviously a fair amount of actual torture, given that Concretia knows exactly how painful it is to be shocked into unconsciousness by her captors. And yet HW has her power set.
You might point to the Rumble at the Steakhouse as evidence that Concretia was already a villain, but again we have the question of coercion since Vehemence’s power ‘made’ people who appear to have had zero intent to break the law otherwise (Barberian, for example) join up with him.
Being coerced into committing crimes via a form of mind control or under threat of torture and/or death is still criminal, in that you could be charged with the crimes you commit even if the extenuating circumstances might see you beat the charges in court. But you still have to have that day in court, and lose, before you’re actually guilty of the crimes. So “being a supervillain” seems to have a lot of wiggle room in it, at least as far as Concretia’s case goes.
Perhaps Concretia has done some crimes outside of Vehemence’s influence and outside of the duress of being kidnapped and tortured into criminal acts. Do these hypothetical crimes somehow quality her for the status of “supervillain” if she hasn’t faced those charges in court and been found guilty? That would mean that HenchWench’s power can read minds and determine guilt, and use that to assign “supervillain” status to a super. This seems like quite a stretch.
All valid points, for the implicit definition of ‘supervillain’ as ‘one who breaks the law using Powers’ or even ‘one convicted of breaking the law using Powers’. It may be that Hench Wench’s Power uses a different definition, but any definition is likely to have edge cases and ambiguities.
And regardless of how the Power defines a ‘villain’, it’s one of the most metaknowledge-dependent Powers I can recall coming across.
Most Powers involve effectively no metaknowledge. Flicker is extremely fast in her own right, and needs no external knowledge or reference to use it.
Anything that involves borrowing a Power from someone else requires a degree of metaknowledge: knowledge not just of my own Power, but also of what yours is (and enough of how it works to replicate it). Less so in variants where I have to touch you for the loan to work, as that could be interpreted as allowing my Power to read yours directly rather than having to identify and read a remote target.
The employment-only version of Hench Wench’s Power adds an extra layer of metaknowledge: not only does it need to know what your Power is, but whether or not I am employed by you. Which may require a formal contract (which may in turn rely on a specific jurisdiction), or an informal swearing of service, or just our own perceptions.
And now we have a third layer: what your Power is, whether you’re my employer, and whether or not you’re a ‘villain’. Defining the Power is purely objective – the Universe knows the rules and mechanisms for your Power, so it can copy me in on them. Employment is objective, but only in the context of a chosen framework. And villainy can take many guises and definitions, as alluded to earlier.
Heh, Flicker is not just “extremely fast.” She is so fast that she has to slow down to communicate with, or kill, characters who are described as “speedsters” in that universe. She is so fast that she can lie down in front of almost every threat in that universe, go to sleep, and be untouched by their best efforts to harm her.
I greatly enjoyed the early stories from that author, where he explored the physics of a character who can run at relativistic speeds, or at least speeds where she (Flicker, the main character) has to limit herself to about .2C. She drove off and largely destroyed an alien invasion by throwing rocks at the alien space ships, while jetting around so fast that their laser weapons (which travel at light speed, naturally) were unable to kill her.
But I’ve given up on that story line and that author, as it has devolved into an exploration of how the main character is her own worst enemy, psychologically speaking. Because it almost has to, since nothing else in the Flickerverse is capable of harming her. As stated earlier, she can be asleep and still be completely immune to any rational form of attack. Her challenges aren’t some super villain, instead they are things like “Why is killing bad actors such as monstrous national leaders (North Korea, Russia, China, Iran, etc.) a bad thing.” And while that might be a fun read for some, it isn’t for me.
So while I greatly enjoyed the early works from that author, and have linked it here a few times myself, I’m no longer following that publication myself any longer. The things that drew me in have vanished, replaced by an angsty self-hate story line that holds zero draw for me.
Well, thanks to you both. Scott’s Folly for the link, and Oberon for the backhanded recommendation.
You’re welcome. As Oberon says, there is just a touch of power imbalance going on, which will be offputting to some. For me, a lot of the appeal is the strong effort at mostly-plausible-sounding worldbuilding as much as what actually goes on in that world.
lmao all these *fade to black* style tickling references…Is there another comic I should be subbd to so I see both sides of the story? lmao
It’s only a few steps to test.
1. Get Varia to go “evil” briefly.
2. Get henchwench to work for her.
3. TOUCH.
… though, in truth the testing would be longer, as we’d need to test a henchwench with no power but her own first, and then hench wench with a power set borrowed from people with known effects on Varia.
Wait a minute… Will this kill her? Maybe not, but it occurs to me that her soul isn’t actually inside of her body right now. Will she get snapped back into her body when she loses that power, or will she be severed from her body?
I’m wondering if she will survive a full power blow from Maxima swinging the Henchwench shaped chunk of concrete. Maxima doesn’t realize Henchwench’s powers are gone and lets her have it. Instant Henchwench flavored red mist.
Max has excellent hearing, and has reflexes quick enough to catch a bullet. There’s no reason she wouldn’t hear Brüt call out from just a few metres away, nor be unable to pull out of an punch that’s yet to be thrown.
Pulling a punch is relatively easy. Stopping the swing of the HenchBat may be trickier: that lump of concrete will be carrying a lot of momentum, and it’s being swung by a relatively narrow bit. If Maxima’s ‘tactile integrity field’ (or whatever it’s called) isn’t properly tuned, Hench Wench may still find herself on the receiving end of whichever bit of statue breaks off and keeps going.
If HenchWench was working for the heroes, she’d be called Sidekick Chick.
I hope to see more of Henchwrench in the future. As she is an enjoyable experience to see fighting against.
What happens if they just quit? If they just quit the LLC, will Hench just lose that specific power? Quitting and making her lose the super strength would tip the scales to Maxima’s favor.
tried the evil inc comic bailed after I found it has its intro behind a paywal don’t read cash grabs
Amusingly, the creator has been accused of that before and owns it well enough to use it as a vanity URL for a kickstarter on his podcast – ComicLabCashGrab.com.
Have you tried… either buying the books or using the archives?
Okay, just had a look at the archives and they only go back as far as book #41, guess you will have to just cough up the cash and buy the rest of them
There is no incentive to do so without familiarity. Its not like buying a physical book copy of the comic, or special patreon bonuses. Or a free youtube series and then buying the merch they make or donate, or an indie game where you then donate or buy the merch to expand the product into the mainstream consciousness.
If you are unfamiliar with a product, and there isn’t some absorb through osmosis effect *such as with name brand items like Marvel and DC comics where plenty of people are familiar with the characters long before they ever even see a comic book to try and get in on it*, or anything else well advertised.
there is little to no incentive to pay for an unknown product. and from what you all say even if you check out new stuff its unrelated to old stuff so even a new fan that way doesn’t have much in the way of an incentive to pay to see it.
Speaking from a purely marketing stand point.
You can find at least parts of archive on wayback machine.