Grrl Power #916 – Bad faith
I think Henchwench is trying to vie with Lorlara for second place in the crazy face competition. Sydney is obviously unassailable at number 1.
I assume her contract has a section about how you can’t sue her for tricking you into signing a document that explicitly sets you up for a premeditated double-cross.
This page (and the next few) was directly inspired by your comments from when Henchwench first showed up. I like super powers that have a lot of uh, not rules, but like, when you hear about the power, you think, “that’s cool” but then a day later you have those refrigerator logic moments and you come up with like a million weird power stunts for it. Everything about Henchwench is like that. Like what if she was hired by Absorbing Man or Parasite AND Evil Energy Guy (I couldn’t think of an evil Human Torch off the top of my head) Could she just feed herself unlimited power? Or what if the contract she signed said she only got the powers of the supervillain on call? Like it rotated out depending on what day of the week it was. Not sure why you’d do that, but it would certainly make it really hard to jail her if you managed to catch her without getting her fired first.
Seeing as how Henchwench’s powers are contract based, I’m going to say that she’s like, 1/8th devil. Not demon. Devils are the ones into contracts. Dabbler would be the first tell you… actually, the scene would go like this:
Sydney: It’s a demon! But, uh, not like… I didn’t mean that in a judgemental way. I’m not a racist!
Dabbler: Actually he’s a devil.
Sydney: Oh? Is there a big difference?
Dabbler: Oh gods, yeah. Huge difference. Totally… eh, not really.
Sydney: Oh. Uh, well, I’m still sorry if I implied you all look alike.
Dabber: Sydney, I’m a demon, not a snowflake. I’m not going to report you to HR.
Sydney: Right, sorry. You cloven-hooved ass-goblin.
Dabbler: If you’re trying to upset me, you’ll have to do a lot better than that. I do have cloven hooves, and I love ass gobblin’.
Sydney: Gross. Fine, that zebra haired barber guy said you give really average blowjobs.
Dabbler: I’LL SUE YOU FOR SLANDER YOU FUCKING…
Devil: Should I come back?
Aaaand scene.
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Smarter than your average vill – a GrrlPower trope… One of the reason why I hang around here.
DaveB: Evil Energy Guy (I couldn’t think of an evil Human Torch off the top of my head)
Me: Radioactive Man…?
Me: Atomic Skull
Sunfire.
He’s mostly a hero.
Mostly? If you’re not straightedge now, you never were. /s
in a comic book?
Magneto and Juggernaut have both switched back and forth between villain and hero, and Magneto has dozens if not hundreds of deaths under his belt.
or heck Venom, hero, anti-hero, villain..space knight, villain, savior of the universe
(writer in-fighting and marketability induced shifts really make this character unstable in their motives and personality).
Electro
Electro.
Dr. Doom? Umm, if we’re talking “evil” but Anti-Heroes count, Spawn. Lots of choices really.
Volcana from DC is basically a female DC version of the Human Torch. Superman villainess.
She basically does all the same things as the Human Torch can do.
In Marvel there’s:
Flamelord, Herald of Galactus
Super Skrull – sorta, since he literally does have the Human Torch’s powers, along with the rest of the Fantastic four’s powers.
Starbold (of the Shi’ar Royal Guard – basically depends on what orders he’s following if he’s good or bad)
Solarr is basically an evil Human Torch as well, but he’s dead now. Also he couldnt fly so… not EXACTLY like the Human Torch.
Starbolt, not Starbold, sorry.
If we’re talking ANY energy, not just fire….
Blastarr
Annihillus
Livewire
Pyro
Dark Phoenix
Darkseid (because of his Omega Beams/Omega Sanction)
Legion (from Marvel)
Nimrod
Reactron (from DC)
El Diablo (from Suicide Squad) – who actually does have fire powers so he should probably go in the other list as well
Electro
Blackfire (from Teen Titans)
Moonstone (basically an evil Captain/Ms. Marvel, although Carol Danvers has been pretty evil since Civil War 2 but never gets called on it)
Heat Wave (from DC comics, not Grrlpower’s Heatwave – Captain Cold’s partner)
Sinestro (if you consider the power rings to be energy attacks)
Electrocutioner
Shocker
Metallo (if you include his Kryptonite blast)
Kryptonite Man (see above)
Titano (see above again)
Star Sapphire
Neutron
Atomic Skull
Black Manta
Devil Ray
Pyro should also go in the “other list” since his power is specifically fire manipulation.
Don’t forget Klaw! Sonic energy!
ANY energy should include sonic waves, no? so Black Bolt and Banshee and their ilk should probably be included as well…
I never said it was an all inclusive list :) But yeah, Klaw, Black Bolt, and Banshee I guess too. :) And I guess Black Canary too?
Usually when I think ‘energy guy’ I don’t think of sound. Probably for the same reason I don’t think of Sebastian Shaw with kinetic energy.
When most people think of an energy manipulator they are generally referring to an energy channeler, energy converter, or energy manipulator. Usually in the form of “exotic” energy such as energy beams from an extra dimensional source like with Cyclops from the X-men, or someone who absorbs force and fires it back as energy beams like Hunter Bishop, or can excite particles in the air to create blasts of heat and light in various forms.
If we want to be all inclusive *but exclude metaphysical energy sources used to produce exotic bio-mass to bypass conversation of mass law*, and just “force manipulators”
well then we also have
photokinetic, electrokinetic, magnekinetic, electromagnekinetic, astrakinetic, radiokinetic (weak force manipulators), sonics, psionics, etherakinetic, Molecular and Particle manipulators (strong force and weak force manipulation), manakinetic, quantumkinetic, ki/chi enhanced, Gravikinetic,
include exotic energy forms, Negakinetic/Umbrakinetic (manipulation of dark and dark to the human eye extra dimensional energies that may look like manipulation of darkness and shadows but is actually extradimensional energies),
and Necrokinetic (manipulation of anti-life force, ghost energy, pure death, ect…)
and the various spiritual energy manipulations that are said to not be chi/ki or magic(mana),
and the numerous sub-variations of the above focused on very specific uses of those energies and combinations or applications/translations.
Vector from the U-foes is your energy (radiation guy).
Edit—(radiation) guy.
Kabobbed!
Foot? Leg?
Doesn’t matter PAIN!
Henchwench is facing away so I doubt it’s her foot. Kinda looks like Maxima rammed it vertically into the back of her calf, which really makes me cringe.
Or right into her Achilles tendon.
You can still get a person’s foot from that angle
Nail that man’s foot to the deck!
My favorite humorous threat was “I’ll nail your foot to the floor and watch you walk in circles.”
So basically she’s the manager, and can only be fired with her own permission?
I can see 1 easy way out: Brüt should just quit. If he’s not part of the LLC, she’s not getting his powers.
He probably can’t quit without her expressed permission
That’s indentured servitude. Illegal in the US.
Concretia signed under duress if she’s their prisoner. That little legal point didn’t matter much either
True. But whats the betting there is a notice period?
Not really relevant.
Any contract intended to further a criminal enterprise is, legally, unenforceable.
A notice period on a contract that is, on its face, unenforceable … is no notice period.
I bet it is. Hench seems to be all about the contract.
So if contract says 6 months notice, then six month notice it is.
But with Concretia’s duress signing still working for the contract, we’ve established that legal enforceability has zero impact on Henchwench’s power’s enforceability. Since the problem is Henchwench still being loaded up with powers, rather than “do we still have to pay her?”, United States contract law is irrelevant in this case, and we have to fall back on “what does the actual paper say?” and if it says you can’t fire her without wearing a pink tutu and publicly singing a Disney movie song, then that’s what you’ve gotta do before her power says she’s fired, even if Disney is going to sue you afterwards.
Let her go, let her gooooo
+1
Said contract also forms a LLC. LLCs are a legal construct by Governments.
So, which Government’s laws govern the LLC?
Maybe she let them believe it was a proper LLC but her powers made the LLC magically binding.
We haven’t QUITE established that a particular person’s COMPREHENSION of legal enforceability (such as Concretia’s) has zero effect on Henchwench’s powers.
It may be as simple as producing serious doubt about the contract’s legal soundness and suddenly that power will be missing.
But I do think the rebar through the calf (and the threat of more) has a decent chance of taking some of HW’s “fight” out of her – maybe it will make her mad, of course, and she’ll start flailing, but enough rebar through enough limbs may reduce her meatbag capability or at least restrain her – might not inhibit her projection or geokinesis very much, but…
Regardless, if not, then Maxima will have more data to determine how she needs to handle the situation (choking HW out of oxygen by flying her into orbit or something?) — there’s the possibility that the framing above, where we can only see fly-gal and Brüt, is intentionally cutting off someone with new powers that she’s not yet demonstrated. we don’t even see ALL of Brüt – it could go a lot of ways, to be honest, depending on how much longer DaveB wants this particular fight to last
Also recall that HW’s powers only work with supervillains, so any contract would automatically be illegal, anyway. Clearly legality isn’t affecting how this works.
DaveB’s suggestion that she’s part devil makes sense for this – devils are big on contracts, and clearly no devil’s contract is going to be enforced by federal or state governments. When one “sells one’s soul” to a devil, it’s understood that American contract law isn’t what’s being used here. It’s “infernal contract law”, which the devil himself is responsible for enforcing? Maybe other devils (and LE beings) might have formed some sort of Infernal Bar Association, and work together to enforce each other’s contracts? (Please note: I am not a lawyer, pulling most of this outta my ass.)
Which leads to our real solution for this – get HW kicked off of the Infernal Bar Association. If her contracts are enforced only by her own powers, it’ll be a lot easier to nullify them.
Supervillains can still run a company, as long as they’re not incarcerated at the time.
For example, Lex Luthor runs LexCorp. And he’s a supervillain. And LexCorp is not created to commit crimes, although Lex does commit crimes while being CEO of LexCorp.
For example, while Lex Luthor was CEO of Lexcorp, I hear he stole 40 cakes.
And that was terrible.
I don’t know that there is a law that says you can’t “run” a private company while incarcerated. A public stock company, sure.
Not sure what state this pull quote is from, but it sounds reasonable:
“According to the State Attorney General’s Office the state generally does not prohibit inmates from owning property or having business interests outside of prison, provided those activities do not violate their judgment and sentence or Department of Corrections Policy.”
Yeah. You can ‘own’ a business while in prison, but you can’t RUN/operate a business while in prison (at least on paper). Inmates are prohibited from entering a business contract while in prison, which makes actually running a business while in prison pretty much impossible. Instead, you have to appoint someone else to run it FOR you until you get out (usually a next-of-kin unless you directly appoint someone else).
The idea behind this is while in prison, you’re not considered an independent person – you’re a ward of the state, so your rights and liberties are limited by the DoC.
Even in the comics, when Lex went to prison, Mercy Graves (his bodyguard and assistant) ran LexCorp for him until he got out.
Heh, “LE beings“. First reading of that, I took it as Law Enforcement beings, and it was only about a sentence later that I realised Lawful Evil was the more likely intended expansion. Both work for the context!
There’s a long history of devil’s contracts being enforced as interpreted by argumentation in front of a jury of condemned souls…. depending on jurisdiction.
The Devil and Daniel Webster. Which having read it doesn’t deserve it’s fame or status as a genre producer.
It’s fan fiction, actually. Or possibly an advertisement.
Its the writer’s fanboyism fanfiction of a real person mixed with “patriot” propaganda.
Why he can’t go to hell *despite not refuting the contract or finding any legal loop holes*, because he’s an American.
I actually like the idea of a trial in Hell over a soul as a concept; and there are a handful of legends and myths of something similar with getting a soul back from the underworld or getting into the right after life; but the idea of not dying in the first place and going to hell with a full on trial has some interesting potential. its just a shame the progenitor of this concept in modern literature was so bad.
Boy I would HATE for a supervillain to do anything illegal.
Pretty much the whole contract is illegal. It’s written entirely on the premise that crimes WILL be committed & so it fails to conform to the Uniform Commercial Code standards that define which contracts are & are not legally enforceable.
In short, the provisions within the UCC have legally nullified that contract even as it was signed…
I’m not a contract lawyer, but I imagine it would be less quitting, and more like a board member withdrawing their investment, as it were. Maybe there’s a buyout clause, or the LLC could sue for damages caused by breach of contract. But that’s where this power set gets really weird, because I’m… 99% certain that any contract created expressly to commit crimes isn’t legally binding under any circumstances.
Anyone can quit any job they want for any reason or no reason at all. There cannot be a contract that says you are not allowed to quit, or that gives a time limit on how not being able to quit immediately if you do not want (although there can be stipulations about FIRING to give a period during which you still get a severance). Even with requirements to give notice, it doesnt mean you can’t quit without notice – it just usually has some sort of penalty for not giving notice (plus it would be a really weird contract). Otherwise, it would be indentured servitude, which is illegal in the US.
I should probably elaborate on something here.
If you are a member of an LLC and do so without NOTICE, you will incur penalties as written in the operating agreement. Usually significant ones.
If there ISNT an operating agreement, then state law determines how the remaining members split the departing member’s shares, or if the company automatically dissolves.
I’m assuming here, there was an operating agreement, and I’m assuming there are penalties written into the operating agreement for quitting without giving the LLC sufficient notice. If they were in California though, there would be some additional hurdles, like California Corporations Code Section 17252, where even if they resign or retire or withdraw from the LLC, it doesn ot terminate the withdrawing party’s equity interest in the company until the question of what to do with his or her share of the company is handled.
I figured I should mention that since my first post was missing some important info.
But if she is the manager, then she is the boss, not an employee, therefore, she doesn’t get any of the powers of her employers, since there are non.
She could, conceivably, have lied about how her powerset works…
What?! A bug [s]guy[/s] girl lying? Never! What is the world coming to? That would make this story so unrealistic.
Oops, bad girl
And this is why she can only be 1/8th devil.
It’s not that devils cannot lie, as far as I’m aware. They’re just not able to lie about stuff like *that*. Well, at least, not directly. They can certainly mislead, such as asking leading questions about what someone thinks they can do, or by making hypothetical statements that imply something that’s not true. But she explicitly stated that she needed to be the underling.
Now, an employee-owned LLC does make things a certain amount of confusing. There is, however, one thing that is almost certainly not confusing. How did she get to be ‘manager’?
I think LLCs require chief something officers, and I believe the one ‘something’ that is required is ‘executive’. That individual almost certainly has the power to promote someone else to be manager, who could then sign.
Technically speaking, she could be a non-member manager and still be an employee of the LLC members. But if that was the case, the members of the LLC would NOT need her ratification to fire her.
If she’s the manager she’s still an employee of the corporation, not the employer, just one with the responsibility of managing the corporation.
The corporation itslef is the employer. The way coporate law and her powers work it seems that means that the various owners of the corporation count as BEING the corporation, thus being her employers. Since part of the point of forming a corporation is to legally separate yourself from the business, and not have personal liability for it, so I’d have thought they would need to form a partnership, not a corporation…but apparently that’s not how her powers work so an LLC is good enough.
They ought to be able to remove her as manager, without the manager’s ratification, but since as others have pointed out the rules of her powers and the contract are likely not based on US or other normal law, and the villains seem to have been really lax about actually reading and understanding the contract and letting her write what she wants, it’s possible it is in fact a catch-22 and she can’t be fired without agreeing to it.
There are other possible ways to deal with it, I think someone mentioned simply dissolving the corporation, or owners selling their shares, but presumably that takes time.
Theoretically there should be a board which has the power to do various thing with the corporation, so it shouldn’t require every owner to sign on…but it’s possible they simply made every owner a member of the board, since the point wasn’t to run the LLC like a business, but to have an extremely powerful employee/ally.
I think we’ve reached the limits of Max’s patience…
Yes. Angrifiing Max is a mistake, sometimes a fatal mistake.
Nah, Maxi is all “Bored with this shit, time to end this farce.”
It also seems like she was a bit stuck in having a fun all out brawl, and now that she got interrupted, she remembers that she’s supposed to end it quickly. And does.
Atomic Wedgie. Seriously.
Remember Harem?
And HW has a concrete double running around…
Actually think that’s “Had” at this point, given Max also looks like she’s “Testing” to see whether HW lost Brut’s durability (which she clearly has, given the Foot-kebab))
It’s not a wedgie. Maxima stabbed that sharp stick of iron somewhere, and HW screamed. I’m guessing in her foot.
What happens if everyone in the LLC quits? Do they have to give 2 weeks notice first?
If they quit, yes, if they get fired on the spot by the employer to save the company, no.
Also, the employer should have made the contract with several additional clausules:
– powers provided by company not to be used for personal gain
– powers not to be used outside office hours, no overtime allowed (mandatory days off apply)
– powers not to be used in ways that the company will receive bad PR
You are forgetting who got them to make the L.L.C. in the first place: Henchie
There is no legal requirement to give 2 weeks notice, I believe all states are at-will states, where either employer or employee are allowed to sever the relationship at any time for any (non-illegal) reason. There could be contractual penalties for failing to give notice, but the company can’t require your labor.
What if the LCC disbands or goes out of business!?
While employment contracts are no longer common, they do exist. There can be express legal terms about such things, and any top CEO will have a fairly long contract establishing the parameters and penalties on each side of early termination without consent by the other party.
There is no reason why the role of non-member manager could not have had a 2-week notice period, but it looks like HW tried something trickier that didn’t work.
That’s still not a legal requirement – that’s a contractual penalty. A contract might include a “if you leave without giving two weeks notice then you forfeit $X of wages and have to pay a penalty of $Y” etc., but the company can’t force you to work.
What happens if one of the supers quits the LLC? Does she still keep the powers? A clause that says she keeps the powers of the supers that quit seems like a stretch, contract wise. Especially if the contract specify that the contract only grants the powers of those that have signed and are still in the LLC. Is it like a company that keeps your intellectual property? Even then, why doesn’t she join a group and have the contract signers specify that she can keep her powers even after their death.
Varia tastes Henchs power. Hench borrows Varias power. The Chaos would be chaotic.
Quick: we need to appoint a new Manager for the LLC!
So, apparently Hench Wench is the Evil INC. (LLC) ‘manager’ and keeps adding employees. Connie isn’t present to sign on with Brut and Flygirl. (the one in the mask who snatched up the stasis gun 20 or so strips back)
This gives her a LOT of powers to work with and makes it tricky to even get a majority to ‘fire’ her. (since she has members who don’t know about each other)
Then again, she doesn’t seem to have anything to help with having her stapled to the ground with a chunk of rebar.
Hope her tetanus shots are up to date.
yuffiek: Hope her tetanus shots are up to date.
Me wanting desperately to see her get trounced: I don’t.
We don’t see Concretia on-page, but we can’t be sure that she wasn’t present based on what we do see. Anyone standing on the other side of Brüt from the Masked Missile* would be out of shot in all panels; Missile’s comment to Brüt in panel 8 is a one-to-one aside rather than something addressed to the whole group.
*In the absence of a better or more official name for her
Flygirl, or what ever that translates into Alarian
Is she Alari? There’s no sign of the distinctive wings, as we saw on Sciona during her flight.
Silvery hair isn’t sufficient identifier, as that’s seen among Humans as well.
The head around the grey mask is a dark brown, similar to Hench Wench’s hair; that might be her own skin tone, or it might be a hood. If it’s a hood, colour isn’t diagnostic of People. If it’s skin, it matches none of the Alari we’ve seen so far: Sciona is a lighter blue-grey, while Lorlara is a much darker grey, to pick the two with decent close-ups.
Like mentioned elsewhere, she could also be a drow
Not all Alari have the wings, and she could be using something else for flight, like a jetpack
And right now, any guess is a valid one
It has also been mentioned there is no reason to believe she is anything but a super with flight powers who is wearing a flight suit with a full protective mask as her powers must not include any protection from wind sheer or thing like bugs.
I remember the page with people mistakenly believing she had grey skin when a zoom in shows it was just the mask she wears.
Adding employees would do her no good, since she gets her powers from her employERS.
Maybe she recruits new members to the LLC and gets their buy in approved though.
Second row, far right image really reminds me of a couple of the faces Deus has made, lol.
How did Henchwench even find out she had this power?
Discovering when she made a bank account, she could cash other peoples’ checks?
Is it possible that she was a lawyer or paralegal? It would account for her familiarity with contracts and a higher probability working for unsavory supers. Over time, she could have realized her powers potential and limitations.
The 1/8th devil comment actually solves this problem. The old this power is so convoluted, situation specific, or you’d be killed if you hadn’t had it power discoveries can all get the work around of . It’s a family trait so being passed down you know about it from them. Even if it was a family secret but that immortal ancestor likes to stop by for visits of their descendants told them about it.
Not to disagree with other suggestions for how she could have, but without those, it would still be pretty easy. Get employed by a super, and notice “hey, I now have their power.”
She could have a part of her powerset that she hasn’t consciously realized, of having automatic awareness of the powers gained. This would explain her ability to use Concretia’s power in a way Concretia did not seem to be able to do. Also, it would mean that she could have been employed by *any* super to make the discovery, not just one who was aware of their super powers.
While it seems like getting employed by a super might still be tough, given that one in a million know they’re a super, and there are probably not more than about 999 unaware supers for every aware super, it’s probably worth noting that being hired to mow the lawn, clean the pool, or whatever would probably count. Maybe even the “hey, could you use my camera to take a picture of me and my family so we can all be in it” request one gets from tourists would count.
In a lot of contracting companies and at least some service companies, ones customers count as bosses. I’ve worked as a contractor, and while one of the contracts I was on made it explicitly clear exactly who in the customer company got to tell me what to do, another of those contracts explicitly stated that everyone in the department run by the customer who signed the contract was my boss.
As such, it’s possible to go through a lot of bosses in a relatively short period of time, especially while one is young.
“How did you even find out that you had this power?”
“Oh my god! This is the best divorce story ever!”
http://www.superstupor.com/sust11262007.shtml
Shisk kebab? I think they sell those in Adana.
Wow it seems like Maxima has finally run out of patience with this girl. Though she was probably having fun with the battle up until now
NOW I NEED TO SEE THAT SCENE WITH THE DEVIL!
Seconded!
Arianna pops out about three seconds later about the cultural and political implications of saying “snowflake”, but Dabbler is already gone, the devil is confused, and when A. mentions misinterpretation of Fight Club’s message, Sydney starts veering off into Palahniuk trivia, compares it to Matrix imagery and the red pill, r/incels and (cont.)
Third-ed!
That scene would ROCK.
I can just see some devilish type who got off the WRONG bus at the WRONG time watching as Sydney and Dabbler go at it with cuss words.
‘They know words I did not…’
‘I should run, but this is funny…’
“I love ass gobblin'”
“I’LL SUE YOU FOR SLANDER!”
Those parts of the commentary made me laugh more than the comic, and the comic is already pretty funny.
Teeth… missing… then not… then yes again…
*trying hard not to be THAT GUY*
*…and failing*
Thank you! You saved me from having to do it.
It’s a flashback to when they signed the LLC contract.
See the different backgrounds? That was from when the contract was signed, not the presennt.
Oh wow! I didn’t even pick up on the background differences. I was also wondering why anyone would just be casually standing around in this fight. Now both the teeth returning and that standing around makes more sense. :) Thanks!
Urg.. and i though HW could not have been worse for story immersion.
But each time it reaches a new low point she digs out a showel.
Her power is SO stupid. Each time i read about her it makes me think more of power gaming in a rpg, than of a action scene in a alternate world with super powers.
Why, oh why are so many comic panels wasted on her?
Because she’s hot.
Less so than most of the other women in the comic.
I agree with Tor, I don’t like her power.
Her power sort of hurts my brain, but only because I know how laws actually work. :)
It’s fun until you think too hard about it, then realize it makes no sense at all, and the deeper this goes into HW’s powerset, the more confusing it is because of how many ways the power should not work.
I’m just going with Robk and Archone’s idea that her powers don’t actually work the way she thinks they work, because then I can wrap my head around the storyline and character. It wouldnt be the first time a character didnt realize their powers worked differently than they thought. Like Jabberwokky’s powers don’t work the way she thought they worked either, and various other supers are still learning stuff about their powers.
Concretia herself didnt realize she could do certain things until Sydney mentioned it rather casually. Dabbler did not realize there were easier ways to track Coot until Sydney mentioned the ‘put a tracking sigil on a stone’ idea. It would be consistent to say that HW just THINKS her powers work in a particular way, and in actuality she just is able to mimic other people’s powers based on some sort of willing granting of those powers to her by the original supers. And because she’s a contract lawyer, she got it into her head that her powers are based on really convoluted contracts.
I have a feeling that HW doesn’t really know how her powers work. I think her powers really run off of her belief. In that way she’s kind of like Wile E. Coyote, and won’t fall until she realizes that she ran off the edge of a cliff. I guess ‘belief’ could also be read as ‘ignorance or delusion’, so yes, her powers are ‘stupid’.
Her initial self-explanation didn’t require a “contract”, she just had to work for the villain… the contract was her bright idea on how to get MORE POWAAAARR.
And it worked until it didn’t. If she’d had the sense to run away when he told her to stand down, she could have kept the powers forever. She realistically didn’t have to SURRENDER, and she could easily have gotten away. I guess Sydney would have made sure that someone tracked down and officially dissolved the LLC, but that might have taken days if no fight was going on.
But, NOOO, she was having too much fun fghting with all that POWAARRR.
Need I remind you of the first couple of pages of the entire comic? Has it been too long, or have you never been that far back in the archives?
If she were married to someone with powers would that constitue a contract?
If she were later divorced would she get to permanently keep the powers designated in the divorce agreement?
It’s not as if the powers are removed from the other person.
Only if she was living in the last century, where men basically owned their wives
Most modern marriages are a joint partnership contract, not a slavery contract with the male being the slave-owner
“Most modern marriages are a joint partnership contract, not a slavery contract with the male being the slave-owner”
Heh heh, yeah, NO.
Most modern marriages work that way in practice, because most people aren’t fricking EVIL, but legally, it works out that the woman pretty much owns the man, and has been that way for quite a while now.
See all the ridiculous abuses of “child support” and especially “alimony”, which includes that wonderful concept “imputed income”, which is to say, de facto slavery. Find me one example of that used on a woman…
And what does the man get for that? Um………… I can’t find anything. Seriously. Modern marriage law is horrible.
Let’s go to the pre-nuptial agreement, which not coincidentally was drafted by Henchwench’s legal team, and see what it says.
As per the results of THIS dissolution, nope.
At this point you I do not blame them for being a bit more brutal to henchwoman. They tried to make her surrender, stall to have her fired, and she has just enough powers to prevent most nonlethal methods of taking them down… That you might as well test their regeneration powers to make it clear that they should GIVE UP ALREADY!
Sure her boss who isn’t there and is using her power trip to hide their evil actions is enjoying the reprieve she is giving them. The rest of the group on the other hand is trying their best to distance themselves from her.
Also she probably found out about her powers by mistake working A part time job somewhere… Got super powers when someone with powers owned the store (any big brand store) which caused her to quit (yay super powers! Goodbye retail!) Only to lose them when she quit.
So after becoming Sydney hyper aware she tried leveraging her ability to others who looked like supers like for example (mass super mind control brawl) and kept in the background to retreat when things looked bad… By mostly doing her (this is what I can do) video to send to the higher ups.
After that it was reading every possible TV Trope and crazy contract to ensure that she could never be fired to gain access to a stupid amount of super powers.
Training for powers against other supers…. Was not done.
Have you missed the part where she is the boss? Chunky Salsa has nothing to do with it, except that he had Cree’s body
You know…it’s kind of weird when you think about it that way. She gains the powersets of the villains who hire her…but she’s the “boss” due to her being the manager of the LLC. Isn’t that more like she’s hired them? :P
I’d taken it in the sense of HW being ‘hired to manage the daily affairs of the group on behalf of the partners’, rather than being a boss over the partners. Sort of like how a football club will have the high-profile Manager taking care of the day-to-day business, like Alec Ferguson or José Mourinho, but the Chair and Directors are the ones actually at the top of the power structure.
Not all managers are involved in the hiring process
Basically what Scott Folly said above
That may be why the powers all canceled. As long as she was technically taking their orders, she had their powers. As soon as she became clearly NOT working for them, but running her own game independently, she lost them
She’s not the boss, G. Even if she’s a non-member manager (which honestly makes very little sense in how she thinks there would be a requirement to ratify your own firing, which is sort of ridiculous), a manager is not necessarily a boss. In an LLC, the bosses are the LLC MEMBERS. Sort of like how in a corporation, the President is not necessarily the final boss, the Board of Directors and CEO are, and can fire a President with a vote.
Couldn’t the contract specify the process for certifying the vote? If it can specify the threshold, then it seems like other aspects could be as well.
That’s really not how an manager-managed LLC works though. It’s sort of like a vote of no confidence to get rid of the manager (in this case, 2/3rds majorty requirement) and it’s supposed to be even easier of the manager is not an LLC member because then the manager doesn’t even have any ownership interest in the LLC. There’s not supposed to be a ratification afterwards. Not to mention even if there was some bizarre scenario where there was, it wouldn’t be the ratification of the manager when it’s the manager being fired.
But how do you know a vote has taken place? Is there not a procedure, or can it be completely informal? Is it not possible to specify how the votes are to be submitted or recorded?
Also, HenchWench is presumably employed in two separate, distinct roles within this LLC: as an employee, for the purpose of copying her employers’ powers, which they are aware of, and as the manager of the LLC, which the members apparently aren’t aware of, whether due to not reading the contract thoroughly, or because whoever signs the manager line is designated as the manager. Because they’re not aware that HenchWench is the manager, they’re only attempting to fire her from her position as an employee, and not as the manager. While it may not be legal for removing her from the manager position to require her to ratify the action, couldn’t that be the case for firing her from her other position?
“Also, HenchWench is presumably employed in two separate, distinct roles within this LLC: as an employee, for the purpose of copying her employers’ powers, which they are aware of, and as the manager of the LLC,”
Actually a non-member manager IS an employee. A member manager would be an owner. You’re mistaking the idea that a manager is the employer. In the context of an LLC, a manager is not an owner – he or she is more similar to a director of a corporation – someone who was chosen and hired by the actual owners (the members) to manage the day-to-day operations of the LLC. To simplify the idea, it’s sort of like how the manager of a McDonalds does not actually own the McDonalds.
“While it may not be legal for removing her from the manager position to require her to ratify the action, couldn’t that be the case for firing her from her other position?”
She doesn’t have two positions. You fire the person, you don’t fire the position. IE, you don’t just ‘fire the employee job, then fire the manager job’ – you fire the employee, who is a manager. A non-member manager can be fired by a majority of the members, and that majority can be achieved via phone – it doesn’t have to be in person (which Brut did with Heatwave’s phone). It’s entirely legal to fire her as an employee – period, which also fires her from being the non-member manager.
Again, to use the restaurant analogy, lets say your job is as a manager and a cook. If you get fired by the owner, the owner doesn’t need to fire you twice, once as the manager and once as the chef. They just need to fire you, period. Now… if they WANTED to, they can say ‘I’m removing your responsibilities as a manager, and now you are only a cook. But that’s not the same as firing a person. That’s more like a demotion. Here… Hench Wench was being fired, not demoted.
Totally. FUCKING. CALLED IT!!!
Well, about Henchie thinking three moves ahead, not Maxi getting tired of her SHISK
I think Max just started “amazing what you can live through” mode
Soooo… her real super-power is that she’s… a top-tier contract lawyer?
I strongly suspect that she’s actually B-Tier.
Ariana is likely A-Tier.
An actual Devil (and possibly Deus?) is S-Tier.
So Maxi got fed up and nailed HW to the ground with a piece of broken-off rebar through her foot, or maybe her leg?
I guess she isn’t invulnerable(ish) any more.
There are degrees and max is above them.
There is only 1 character in this comic that’s full on invulnerable, and that’s Achilles. Everyone else is just very resilient to damage.
And Maxima is stronger than HW is resilient.
Heightened durability, Achilles is the only invulnerable one. Even Maxima has heightened durability and can increase this a little and add Slayers if not defense auras.
Layers of defense aura. I have got to find a way to turn off this predictive text nonsense.
If you can’t figure it out, change the keyboard. Most mobile devices let you do that.
I had a keyboard (Samsung) that replaced stuff every time I hit “space” and disabling the option didn’t stop it. Since then I’ve been using various 3rd party keyboards and it’s been a fun experience.
I’m currently using LED Keyboard (Android) because it lets you put any image as a background.
Even if they manage to fire her there’s probably a 30 days notice clause
OBJECTION! The implication that Sydney would not know the difference between those two types of beings is unbecoming of such a nerd queen! A better excuse would be that she did not want to assume that what is bandied about in human fiction is accurate, as she did with the werewolf.
Also, is there a reason we haven’t seen Hench Wench fly that I can remember (besides me being old and senile)? I mean, she might have low enough thrust as to make little difference, or lack a mass adjusting power, but I do think it make some sense.
she flew in one of her first scenes…..before geomancery actions
There is a huge ass difference between fantasy gaming depictions and reality, as Sydney found out after meeting real wampires and werecritters
Maxima’s face says: “This is boring, you bore me.”
Sydney would absolutely know the difference between demons and devil’s. Any D&D player worth their salt should. Demons are chaotic/evil and come from the abyss. Demons are lawful/evil and come from hell.
Though I suppose none of that would be relevant in this comic, unless you decide that it would be Dave, but I think it still emphasises that she would recognize that the two are different, even if she doesn’t know what those differences are.
I’m still waiting for my hypotheses about that central pie-chart on Sydney’s skill tree to be verified or busted. Will she be able to use more than two orbs at a time eventually?
I’m not a D&D player, much less one worth their salt, but are you saying demons come from the abyss? or from hell? what about devils? or was one of your declaratives supposed to actually be about devils, not demons?
I’m confused.
In D&D, Demons and Devils are two separate species. Demons are destructive evil and come from The Abyss, a roiling pit of chaos. Devils are temptation and lawful evil, and come from the extremely stratified and treacherous Nine Hells
There’s also Daemons in Pathfinder who’re Neutral Evil as well, just to add a third option.
Daemons as a middle ground between Demons and Devils date back to AD&D 1st Edition. Also Demodands, IIRC.
what about worlds that have more than nine ‘hells’? or just a single hell?
The second sentence started with a typo, and should have referred to Devils.
I figured there was a typo, and a google search or two could have gotten me my answer, probably, but yeah – confusing to someone who isn’t already well versed with D&D stuff
The fact that demons in this comic are aliens from space pretty clearly indicates that they are not from The Abyss, and thus are not born from the very extraplanar essence of Chaotic Evil itself.
The jury’s still out on Dave’s “devils”, though.
Where did you get that idea?
It was made fairly clear that Planar Cosmology is a part of the Grrlverse, as much as Astronomical Cosmology.
Both are butchered from their folklore name origins and used as translations for English and other European audiences for various things that don’t actually fit the specifics. But in general demon tends to refer to supernatural beings that are antagonistic towards humans. The term devil seems to usually be reserved for beings in that category that would in other folklore fall under the category of being either the ruler over demons, an evil spirit that can be bargained with and held to those rules while other demons are more like wild animals or normal people just with powers, or evil or underworld gods. In the end though like with Dragon, elf, vampire, or just monster they are such widely encompassing terms that depending on the setting you make can apply to things that they wouldn’t apply to in other settings so long as you fit some basic aesthetic and stay consistent internally.
“Sydney would absolutely know the difference between demons and devil’s. Any D&D player worth their salt should.” – Daniel
Exactly. One is a plural noun, the other is a possessive adjective.
Lawful Grammatical aside, remember that a knowledge check is really a multi-part process; it’s not enough for Sydney just to know that Demons are Chaotic and Devils are Lawful (knowledge 1). She must also know what characteristic(s) to look for that are different between the classes (knowledge 2), successfully observe (perception) the characteristics of the unknown (knowledge 3), and then put the bits of knowledge together (intelligence) to get her answer (knowledge 4). As for whether she makes the right response to the knowledge of which class she’s facing, that is a separate question (wisdom).
I can’t figure out what Max is doing to HW in the last panel.
Broken rebar through HW’s calf…or shin.
Both. In through the calf, out through the shin.
Rebar through the leg.
She is barring HW from further hostile action.
Or re-barring.
SHISK KEBOB.
An evil Human Torch? Closest I can think of is Sunfire (Yoshida Shirō). Wiki version: “Sunfire is a Japanese mutant who can generate superheated plasma and fly. Not suited for teamwork due to his temperament and arrogance.” Initially presented as an adversary, but it turns out he’s not a complete tool like Silver Samurai, so hey, team-up.
Anyway, Henchwench is having way too much fun with this.
Man … Hench Wench and Deus would get along rather well … I would think …
They can work on their laugh together … It would be glorious.
Knowing her power, Deus would not hire her. Because then, someone would know what Deus’s powers were. Pretty sure that Dave B is keeping that tight to the chest for the entire series.
I notice Hench Wench has two missing teeth and she’ll be saying, “I look like a hockey player!!!”
Maxima says, “Then why not move to Canada!?”
That’s when Hench Wench starts whistling everytime she says certain words(Sydney starts a ‘Make Hench Wench whistle every time she says’… type of bingo.)
So.. Did Max just spear her leg?
Ow.
it seems that Max just verified that her powers are not tied to the minutia of HW barracks lawyer shyster-y……..STAB! welp, her invulnerability no longer works.
Wouldn’t Sydney know the difference herself, DnD and all that :)?
Yes, because D&D is real
Ok correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t US contract law hold that manager removal doesn’t require the managers permission just a majority vote? I’m pretty sure it’s gone before the SCOTUS before and that was the ruling…
IANAL, but I would SERIOUSLY doubt that US contract law is that intrusive. If you have a meeting of the minds, you have a contract. If you write a stupid contract, then you have a stupid mind & and a judge is likely to have to help you out.
But, as others have mentioned, there is NO WAY that the jurisdiction for this contract is part of the US legal system…
A contract is an agreement (“meeting of minds”) where there is also a recourse to the law over disagreements about the agreement. It doesn’t have to be written down and notarized, but it helps a lot if you’re going to have a dispute. But it does absolutely have to be Lawful; courts never enforce unlawful clauses, but rather strike them out.
It does look like Hench Wench has been too clever by half, slipped an unlawful clause in there, and is finding out that she is now In Trouble.
I can’t tell, it’s not terribly clear.. but did Max just shank Hench-Wench in the leg with a length of rebar?
That seems to be exactly what she did, yes.
Henchwench might have just screwed herself with her contract. If her firing has to be ratified by the manager, and her contract makes HER the manager, thus making her have to agree to fire herself, then she’s no longer a simple employee. She’s Management. Which might mean that invoking the ‘management clause’ in her contract might prevent her from being fired, but might then lock her out of accessing the powers of everyone ‘below’ her in the ‘company’ power structure; which might arguably be ALL of them, since now he has veto power over all of them.
Hey, even a CEO is an employee of the company. Just way harder to fire.
Yeah, but a manager of an LLC is akin to a director in a regular corporation. Directors are not employees unless they draw a wage, and even then they’re still considered a member of the “governing body.”
True, her powers might have just disappeared in a puff of logic.
As usual my life is full of synchronicity; I just watched a YouTube video about strange phobias (don’t go looking for it, it was pretty gross), and they made me aware of the existence of Rebarophobia. Apparently getting impaled on rebar is a common enough occurrence that some people are obsessively terrified with the thought it might happen to them.
Given how stupidly overpowered Henchwench is proving herself to be, I find myself hoping that she turns out to have paralyzing Rebarophobia and is instantly taken out by this maneuver.
I wouldn’t say I’m obsessive, but we had a rotted landscape timber garden border in the back yard, and after removing it I made an absolute point of pulling or driving flush every piece of rebar they’d used to anchor the timbers. And that was some serious work in this Southern clay.
Just takes tripping and landing on 6 inches of rusty rebar once to ruin your whole week.
I would not call that a phobia. I would call that common sense/don’t sue me, we’re friends/don’t sue me I just sold you the house kind of behavior.
I wonder if she has a back up plan for if they just up and quit on her or if they collectively decide to turn against her instead of just firing her. Would the contract trump reality? She’s already betrayed them but technically that just makes her a bad employee.
She probably has a side gig working for somebody with a handy talent for escapes.
Seeing how she just got stabbed with a piece of rebar, it seems reality trumps the illegal contract.
And I think the contract WAS the back up plan. It was probably indeed air tight, just not how her powers actually work.
Okay, I’m going to be honest here. I’m 99% convinced that Henchwench’s powers are NOT what she claimed them to be.
More precisely, I’m 99% convinced that Henchwench’s powers are distorted by her own psychological beliefs.
That contract she described? It’s almost completely unenforceable. A contract is essentially a written recording of an oral agreement between two or more parties, with a “notary republic” as an independent outside witness signing as well. All contracts require INFORMED CONSENT.
Concretia would have signed under duress – if I put a loaded gun to your head and make you sign over the deed to your house, once I get arrested you get to keep your house (and if your money manager or stockbroker is kidnapped, any transactions made after that can and will be reversed).
Slipping in the fine print about the manager? That means the participants didn’t know what they were signing. That would also be thrown out in court. Just like the majority of EULAs do when they get challenged (and by “the majority” I mean “the judge laughs and starts voiding 90% of the EULA, leaving only the bits about how the company can’t be sued because you transferred the software to a USB drive and then shoved it up your nose”).
And to top it off, the contract is for illegal work, which is itself an issue depending on jurisdiction.
I find it VASTLY more probable that Henchwench has a generalized power to copy the powers of others, and HER OWN PSYCHOLOGY has caused her to create such artificial restrictions.
A similar example can be seen in Larry Niven’s “Flatlander” stories, where Gil “the Arm” Hamilton has an imaginary third arm. It’s actually just esper sense and telekinesis, but because Gil THINKS of it as an imaginary arm, it’s vastly more reliable than most similar abilities in the setting. He’s even able to use it in ways that only make sense if he doesn’t think about it too much (like reaching through a video screen during a video call to touch something on the other person’s desk. Or feeling around a holographic map of part of the moon in order to literally comb the terrain with his fingers to try to find clues in his investigations)
Doesn’t look like it. HW is still fully convinced she’s employed, and has those powers. And it seems that Maxima tested it by stabbing her with some Rebar, and the test seems very conclusive: She’s no longer powered.
So her powers do seem to work like she says, except that works more by informal agreement and not the unenforceable contract.
Notice that this is the first time Brüt actually fires her. Before, he just threatened it, and she said he can’t. Which he believed. This time, he said the magic words, which seems to have taken her powers away.
Nothing indicates that. If you mean she’s not invulnerable anymore. She never was, look at Brut on the ground, she has his.enhanced durability.
I agree with RobK here. He makes a good point. Brut never actually FIRED her before now. He just threatened to and she made him think he couldnt. Not to mention that the more stuff she’s adding to the contract terms of firing, the more unenforceable it is to anyone who took a first year course in Contract Law or a second year course in Corporation Law. :)
And she DOESNT have invulnerability (or enhanced durability, which I think RobK is using interchangeably as a definition) anymore. Brut is on the ground because he was hit by Maxima’s fist, which is a lot more powerful than a piece of rebar. If she was still invulnerable/possess enhanced durability, the rebar wouldnt pierce her skin, given the small amount of casual effort that Maxima just used, one would think.
Archone might be right though as well, and HW’s powers are different than what she thinks they are, and the contractual requirement and supervillain requirement are largely psychological.
She’s 1/8th devil – the contract she’s working under is an infernal contract, which really isn’t going to care about legality. Selling your soul into eternal torment would fall under ‘slavery’, and wouldn’t be a legal contract, but that doesn’t mean a Devil couldn’t make it.
Yeah If this can be established on panel and not just blurb it should clear up some stuff…and probably piss of pander and everyone else applying real world legality to a supernatural contract. If you can sign a contract that results in your soul becoming a meat pie to be eaten over and over again in a cycle of suffering and restoration for a demoness in exchange for having her powers until you die then well… I don’t think New York contract law is going to fly in the infernal courts where the judge is a seven headed snake goat wearing a monocle.
“and probably piss of pander and everyone else applying real world legality to a supernatural contract”
I feel violated :)
“I don’t think New York contract law is going to fly in the infernal courts where the judge is a seven headed snake goat wearing a monocle.”
I dunno, I’ve met some judges who fit that description in attitude at least. :)
I though that for selling your soul being counted as slavery the soul would need to be something you officially have according to law …
The selling the soul bit technically comes from a work of fiction Faust. In actual demonic bargains which were based on fae and pagan god stories, the contract was a pledge , you pledged loyalty and servitude to the supernatural entity in exchange for things like wealth , Power, and influence on Earth. Then your eternal self would become the slave, pet, or plaything of the being in question, sometimes even the cost was you became a new one of their kind. The paranoia side comes from the belief part of this bargain was to “corrupt” others to join or spread evil on Earth. Basically the Church fear mongering against pagan rituals in reality. For the sake of all this lawyer talk this isn’t a legal thing it’s a faith thing. A spiritual contract.
I love the Gil the Arm stories… especially how he refuses to attempt anything that doesn’t fit the psychological description of his power. If he couldn’t do it with an arm, he won’t try to do it. Because he has the unshakeable faith that the arm works like an arm… and if he stretched it to ten feet long, it might break his certainty and be gone forever.